Climate change affecting Christmas trees in B.C. and beyond: experts | 24CA News

The results of local weather change are taking a toll on Christmas tree farms throughout Canada, with one forestry skilled and the top of the Canadian Christmas Tree Association saying the sector, which is already present process shifts, might want to adapt additional.

The festive bushes take eight to 12 years to succeed in the dimensions most individuals search for, and younger seedlings are notably weak to local weather dangers, stated Richard Hamelin, head of the forest conservation sciences division on the University of B.C.

Much of the province has skilled extended drought and excessive warmth over the past two summers, and the seedlings have shallow root techniques that do not attain past the very dry layers of soil close to the floor, Hamelin defined.

Their older counterparts could survive however lose their needles or flip brown on account of excessive warmth and drought, he stated in an interview.

In Langley, B.C., the Fernridge Christmas Tree Forest started rising Douglas fir bushes for Christmas in 1988.

Owner Al Neufeld stated the farm can develop as much as 18,000 bushes, however rising warmth — together with the 2021 warmth dome — is affecting the well being of Fernridge’s bushes, particularly its seedlings.

“Five or six years ago we started getting some of those really hot dry summers and so that’s really hard for the seedlings to take,” he stated. “So those seedlings that we may have planted five or six years ago didn’t … have a good rate of taking. Five years ago affects how many trees we have available this year.”

Excessive moisture

Seedlings and their shallow roots are additionally prone to being inundated throughout flooding, whereas moist, cool soils enhance the danger of root ailments, Hamelin famous.

Record-breaking atmospheric rivers prompted intensive flooding all through southwestern B.C. in November 2021, however Shirley Brennan, the chief director of the Canadian Christmas Trees Association, stated farmers within the province reported their seedlings largely appeared fantastic and the intense warmth had been a lot tougher on the bushes.

The results of flooding, nevertheless, could change into clearer over time.

“Right now the seedlings look OK, but it’s whether or not the root system is strong enough to grow into that tree, and that’s what we don’t know,” Brennan said.

Quebec, Ontario and Nova Scotia lead the country when it comes to producing Christmas trees, and Brennan said farmers in those provinces have also been grappling with the effects of increasingly extreme, unseasonable weather.

Brennan said she has spoken with tree farmers from across southwestern Ontario and the Greater Toronto Area, some of whom told her they lost upwards of 40 per cent of their crops as they didn’t receive rain between May and August this year.

Christmas tree farmers are no strangers to drought, Brennan added.

“Drought is a part of farming,” she stated. “Mother nature is a silent partner in any farming commodity, whether it’s Christmas trees or whether it is corn.”

The difference, Brennan said, is the extreme, unseasonable nature of recent droughts and other climate-related events, including intense late-spring frosts in Nova Scotia in 2018 followed by eastern Ontario and western Quebec in 2020.

‘Added stress’

Brennan said she expects more tree farmers will start planting seedlings in both spring and fall, when they would normally favour planting in one season.

Hamelin noted climate change is also causing warmer weather that fuels activity among pests, which can plague trees already weakened by drought or disease.

“Just like people, once we are confused or once we’re extra drained, we’re extra vulnerable to ailments. Well, bushes are the identical means,” he stated. “All this added stress from all this heat and flooding make the trees more susceptible to pests and pathogens.”

Climate change is not the only factor challenging farmers and threatening Canada’s stock of real Christmas trees, which has been declining for several years.

Since the trees take about a decade to reach the desired size, the closure of tree farms in Canada and the United States during the 2008 recession is now being felt.

The closures have continued since then. Data from Statistics Canada shows the total area of Christmas tree farms shrunk by nearly 20,000 acres between 2011 and 2021.

The average age of a tree farmer is between 65 and 85 years old, and younger generations aren’t entering the sector as longtime farmers retire, Brennan noted.

Hamelin said the high cost of land and competition with crops that yield revenue more quickly than festive trees may also be inhibiting factors for the sector in B.C.

He pointed to some options that could help Christmas tree farmers weather the effects of climate change, including genetically selecting and breeding the strongest trees among classic Canadian species or importing different species from parts of the world where fir trees are better adapted to sweltering heat, such as Turkey.

The plantation-like approach to Christmas tree farming is also “fully unnatural,” leaving seedlings and younger bushes uncovered to the solar, he stated.

Christmas tree farmers may take into account letting some bushes develop taller, or planting seedlings in areas the place extra mature bushes may present some shade, he stated.

“I believe there are some options, we simply must scratch our head and understand that issues are totally different, and sooner or later we simply want to vary the best way we do issues.”