Indiana is losing Christmas tree farms, and a changing climate poses problems for those that remain
A lot has changed since Jeanne Hopwood first started selling Christmas trees in 1986, but perhaps the most pressing change has been Indiana's climate.
Complications from warmer, wetter weather has limited Hopwood's ability to grow as many trees at her Christmas tree farm. These days, she's forced to rely a lot more on imported trees.
As a result, customers who come wanting to chop down their own tree are faced with fewer options than years past. This year, she said, her fields were stripped bare.
"I cannot keep up with the demand of people wanting to cut a tree in the fields," Hopwood said. "They've just stripped my trees this year."
Annual average temperatures and precipitation levels in Indiana have been steadily growing for decades, making the state's climate warmer, wetter and optimal for fungus and pests.
At Hopwood's Bloomington-based Twin H Tree Farm, she's losing many more trees than she used to to diplodia blight, which slowly kills off the branches. The only way to get rid of the fungus, she said, is the pull out the trees and let them die.
This summer, she lost about 600 Scotch pines to the fungus. Next summer, she'll have to uproot 1,500 more.
"If I had to rely on this farm producing enough Christmas trees to make a living," Hopwood said, "I could not do that anymore.”
To counteract the losses, Hopwood said she imports about 1,200 trees per year from farms in Michigan.
Fifteen years ago, all of her trees would have been grown in the field. But where she used to have 150 acres in growing trees, she now uses 30 to 40.
She could treat her fields with chemicals and pesticides, but it doesn't really make sense.
"I’m going to spend as much money on the chemicals as I’m ever going to make on the trees, and I don’t like adding the chemicals to the atmosphere," Hopwood said. “The issues I have right now, it would cost me so much to treat them, it’s not economical.”
Indiana is losing its Christmas tree farms
In recent years there's been a steady decline in Christmas tree operations in Indiana. The same is true nationally, but Indiana is outpacing the national rate, said James Farmer, an IU associate professor in the O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs.
Since 2002, the number of Christmas tree farms in the state dropped by 40%, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Nationwide, that number was 27%.
Part of it is due to the aging out of Christmas tree farmers. A recent report showed the average Christmas tree farmer is 64 years old.
That report, produced by Farmer in collaboration with the Indiana Christmas Tree Growers Association and with grant funding from the Indiana State Department of Agriculture, compiled the experiences and plans from 51 of the almost 190 Christmas tree farmers across the state.
The study said the number of farmers actively planting may continue to decline as much as 17% to 18% in the next five years as farmers age out of operations.
While the number keeps dropping, the farmers that remain face environmental complications, from the weather down to the types of trees they plant.
In the past, white and scotch pines were the popular trees for consumers, said Jeff Koning, president of the Indiana Christmas Tree Growers Association, but now people want to buy fir trees that are exotic to Indiana.
People want to buy fir trees in part because they last longer and in part because their shorter bristles are prettier, according to today's standards. But Christmas trees take seven to 10 years to grow to market size, Koning said, which means knowing what trees to plant ahead of time might be difficult for farmers.
“The variety that are currently popular do sometimes change," Koning said. "And knowing what that will be 7-10 years hence, well, that’s the trick.”
Preparing for yields years out becomes even more complicated when factoring in extreme weather events, Farmer said.
Most farmers plant their tree saplings in the spring. These young trees are especially susceptible to the weather, meaning extreme events can deplete yield.
Extreme weather events such as flooding have been increasing in frequency over the last century and are expected to continue increasing, according to the Purdue Climate Change Impacts Assessment. And in recent years, these events have already made their mark.
"In 2012, 2014, we had two pretty big droughts in Indiana," Farmer said. "In turn, we had one of the wettest springs in record memory in Indiana this year. For many farmers, the younger crops of trees could not handle water on their roots for an extended period of time ... weather events like that can be problematic for tree growers."
'I have not met the demand yet'
Despite the challenges to Christmas tree farmers in a warming Indiana, Farmer's study also found these farms are still selling out of their products — easily.
Demand for Christmas trees seems to be steadfast despite popular preferences and environmental changes, Koning said, which bodes well the for the industry moving forward.
"The market is strong, I think it will continue to remain strong," Koning said. "As consumers change their buying habits and realize the benefits of buying a sustainable, environmentally friendly, locally-based product, that demand will only become stronger.”
But as the number of farms continues to diminish, people wanting an old-fashioned Christmas tree experience may have fewer options. Monroe County, for instance, used to have four farms and now just has one, even though the county's population has increased.
Hopwood is the only Christmas tree farm left in Monroe County. Nearby Abell Nursery grows Christmas trees as well, but they are primarily a nursery and also sell other plants.
"I’m getting people from further distances," Hopwood said. "For a tree farm experience, there isn’t any place else around here anymore. So they all come out here, and I have not met the demand yet.”
The need to ship in more trees from other states hasn't hurt her business, Hopwood said. She thinks people will always want to come walk through the field and have the classic Christmas tree farm experience.
Moving forward into warmer and wetter winters, however, she said she doesn't know what the future will look like.
"I'm still planting. People still want to go out and go through the fields and cut a tree," Hopwood said. "But I won't plant nearly as much, because (the trees) aren't living.”
Contact IndyStar reporter London Gibson at 317-444-6043 or email@example.com. Follow her on Twitter @londongibson.
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IndyStar's environmental reporting project is made possible through the generous support of the nonprofit Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust.