Christmas tree grower says changing climate brings 'more bad years than good years'
This year was a good one, tree farmer says, but uncertainty lingers
In his almost 20 years of operating Bastien Christmas Tree Farm in the southwestern Ontario town of Essex, owner Ovide Bastien has seen climate change impacting his Christmas tree growth.
"We used to have like three or four good years, and then a bad year. We find it's more bad years than good years a lot of times, as far as the weather goes," he said.
"Summers are hotter, and less rain, less precipitation."
The uncertainty is pushing them to try a different kind of farming, by choosing specific varieties of traditional trees.
"The biggest thing we learned is to grow different kinds of trees that were made to take this kind of climate."
He has been growing climate-resilient varieties of traditional Christmas trees, like spruce and pine.
Rising input costs
Fortunately, this year was a "good year" but Bastien said they are always "worried about the weather" and the associated input costs.
"These trees need a lot of fertilizer. You throw down fertilizer and if you don't get rain, fertilizer is wasted. We find it just more sporadic, if I can put it that way, the weather is just not the same as it used to be," he said, noting last year was "more sporadic with spotty rains".
"During the 20 years I've been doing [this], it's definitely been hotter and drier as a whole."
To keep up with the fickle rains, Bastien now buys coated fertilizer so it "doesn't evaporate" and lasts longer.
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But all that comes with a cost. The coated fertilizers, he said are double the price.
"As far as climate change is affecting the overall cost, yeah, the biggest costs are fertilizers, herbicides, insecticides and miticides. It's all more money out because it's more specific and targeted," he said.
That means, next year, Bastien said, they will increase the price of their Christmas trees, which are presently sold at $68, by five to 10 per cent.
Willing to pay more
Jeff and Christine Mayne from Amherstburg, Ont., cut their Christmas tree at Bastien Christmas Tree Farm on Friday.
For the past 25 years, it has been their family tradition to cut down fresh trees. And the rising costs are not a wrinkle in their Christmas joy.
"Pricing obviously has gone up just like everything else," Jeff said.
But Christine said that doesn't deter them.
"We'll still come out and get a fresh tree," she said. "We'll keep on coming back. It's part of the social thing."
Shirley Brennan, the executive director for the Christmas Tree Farmers of Ontario and the Canadian Christmas Trees Association, said the price of farming is on the rise, with some operators selling trees at a five per cent increase this year.
Climate change affecting Christmas trees
She said last year and the year before, many operators in the Windsor area went from May to August with little rainfall, which certainly impacted trees and the end value.
"Climate change is real and it's affecting us," she said.
"Trees that have not so long of a root and are closer to the surface, those are the ones that we're seeing that are affected the earliest. When the surface dries out, the roots dry out with the surface."
Brennan said to "combat climate change in future," growers are changing the irrigation systems, pivoting away from the sprinkler system to drip system or manual irrigation. She said an additional system to keep the moisture in the ground in drier conditions is growing cover crops or spreading mulch.
From heat domes and extreme heat waves in Western Canada and the flooding on the east coast to early frosting seasons in Quebec and Ontario, Brennan said operators across the country are trying to keep up with climate change.
"We hope that the majority of the planting 10 years ago is ready today. That's not always the case… heat domes, frost and drought can delay the tree going to harvest. What it means that now we're taking 12 years to grow a tree."
Brennan said they have partnered with the Christmas Tree Lab at the University of Waterloo, specifically on research for climate change, as it's a growing concern among Christmas tree operators in Canada.
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