It’s that time of year: Families are heading to farms all across New Hampshire and Vermont to pick out a Christmas tree or cut their own in a New England tradition straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting. Unfortunately, our world is changing, and we are having to plan to change with it.
Climate change isn’t going to take our local Christmas trees away in Vermont and New Hampshire, but it is making us adapt to a warmer climate, new pest threats and annual extremes of flood and drought.
Increasingly, at South Farm in Bethlehem, and as the program director of the New Hampshire/Vermont Christmas Tree Association, I field a lot of questions concerned that the lack of rain or snow, or the heat, are going make it harder for us grow the 800 trees a year we sell.
The fact is, we see the effects of climate change every day at South Farm, the 23-acre farm where we grow the trees. It is warmer and wetter during the spring, and that hurts the trees — many don’t like wet feet.
Even in this small two-state region, we are seeing farmers face different issues each season. Christmas trees are planted at the end of April and the beginning of May and if you are in southern New Hampshire or Vermont, you may not get as much water as you need and you may have to put in an irrigation system and begin a regular program of mulching to keep the soil damp. But in the last two years, it has been the deluges of rain in the spring — people forget, it rained on and off for 12 weeks at one point this past spring — and you need to protect trees from root rot. Field drains or raised beds may be the answer.
At the same time, we are facing new diseases and new pests. Fungal disease has become a problem over the last 15 years — a function of all that spring rain. It denudes the trees. The needles drop and it can make a tree unsaleable unless you control it.
Climate change is affecting the kinds of trees that thrive in our region. The traditional favorites, Fraser firs and Balsams, don’t like it wet and warm and we are continually searching out trees that can adapt better. Nurseries have started cross pollinating Balsams with a Korean tree that is better at withstanding the weather changes. And we are planting a Virginia variety that doesn’t mind wet roots and buds later, attracting fewer insects and helping us cut down on disease control.
What has the changing climate meant? New irrigation systems, more mulch requiring more workers and more innovations, anti-fungal treatments and new varieties of seedlings. I don’t know a single Christmas tree farm that has closed but that, in large part, is because the farmers who do this work don’t want to stop. It is a great way of life, and they find ways to keep their trees healthy and their farms viable.
According to the University of New Hampshire, the state has more than 200 Christmas tree farms, while the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates Vermont is home to around 260 farms. These farms don’t just provide families with a good living — they provide jobs in our communities, protect our open space and help keep our air clean.
New England is warming faster than any other part of the U.S. outside the Alaskan Arctic. That should be a wakeup call for all of us who love winter, cherish our way of life and care deeply about our environment. In other words, all of us.
Nigel Manley is an avid outdoorsman with a degree in agricultural management. He founded South Farm in Bethlehem and is program director and National Christmas Tree Association representative for the New Hampshire/Vermont Christmas Tree Association.