"They're all yellow on the inside. The needles are falling off," said Chris Moran, who runs Vandervalk Farm in Mendon, Massachusetts. "Without water we can't grow anything." His farm has lost approximately 500 of 2,700 Christmas tree seedlings to drought conditions, which he attributes to insufficient water supply after planting during the past spring. The impact is profound, as it's a lot more than the average loss he usually experiences in a typical year.
In ten years, I have 25 or 20 percent less of my product to sell," said Moran, underscoring the long-term effects of current drought situations on future yields. Though larger trees planted years ago appear unaffected, Moran is concerned about the health and survival of newly planted saplings, which will lead to a significant shortage when they would have matured, making this a critical situation for Christmas tree supplies in the coming years.
You can see the root system just doesn't go deep enough to get the moisture and a lot of them just can't hang on, you can see the dead trees there in the field," said Jeff Hill of Orwigsburg, PA, as he discusses the impacts of drought on younger trees which are struggling to survive due to lack of rainfall. Hill predicts a major shortage in five to six years as unviable saplings fail to thrive.
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