December 8, 2023 – Michelle Pridgen sometimes finds small black insects called aphids on her Christmas tree, but usually it’s also a bird’s nest.
“I just incorporate the nest as a decoration,” she says cheerfully.
Pridgen manages a farmers market in Independence, Virginia, and coordinates pre-orders for pesticide-free Christmas trees. I always buy one of those Christmas trees for myself. The market first offered pesticide-free trees in 2012, he said, after a local farm happened to neglect to spray its standing trees. Pridgen said the farm has since stopped using pesticides completely, but sometimes sprays diluted herbicides to control weeds. Said.
“It’s very important to our customers,” she explained. “That’s the main reason why so many people buy trees through our marketplace. Most of our customers are at least environmentally conscious, so most of our vendors are not certified organic. We grow our products organically, and we have a community that supports us. [farmers] In the market, how things grow matters to them. ”
While a small number of Christmas tree growers are moving away from traditional practices, and words like “pesticide-free” and “pesticide-free” attract many Christmas tree buyers, experts say traditional Trees grown in China are typically exposed to the same or fewer pests. More chemicals than the food we eat.
Starting the week before Thanksgiving, Reed Island Christmas Tree Farm in southern Virginia will begin offering “eco-friendly” trees, and each year hundreds of people make the trek through winding mountain roads to create their own classic trees. Cutting down Frasier fir, or a similar variety sometimes called “Frasier fir.” Canaan fir. Our no-spray trees are so popular that we sometimes sell out for a season within the first week of December.
Reed Island owner Billy Cornett Jr., 81, has been growing Christmas trees there since 1989. Raised in a family of coal miners in Kentucky, he took early retirement from his civil engineering career at age 47. Cornett and his wife Betty Bornbrock are now semi-professional musicians specializing in a folk style called old-time music. Bone Block recently returned from concerts in Japan, China, and Hawaii.
“We’re growing trees so we can do something else, and that’s play music,” Cornett said.
health and environmental factors
Cornett and Bonebrock may identify as musicians first and foremost, but they’re also avid farmers. They even traveled to one of the few places in the United States where Frasier fir grows wild to collect cones and bring them back to start their own seedlings.
But things didn’t start like that. At first, like other Christmas tree farms, they started commercially by purchasing seedlings and spraying the trees and land to control pests and weeds.
“Everyone told us to do it, so we did it,” Cornett said. “But we both decided we couldn’t do that anymore.”
They were concerned about the cancer risks of tree growers; analysis A North Carolina State University study shows that North Carolina counties where Christmas trees are grown have lower overall cancer rates than non-mountain counties.
Cornett and Bonebrock live on a farm and are passionate about the no-spray option.
“We realized that anything we sprayed on trees or on farms could, first of all, get into our wells and poison our animals. We have two cats and “We had three dogs, and now we have one. And it could potentially poison the fish in the stream, so we regretted that and stopped it,” Cornett said. , he explained, overlooking a hillside with trees much less uniform than a typical tree farm.
Up close, it is difficult to distinguish cornet trees from traditionally grown trees. Dr. Jamie Bookwalter, an integrated mountain conifer pest management specialist with the North Carolina State University Extension Service, said Cornett uses the same natural methods as traditional growers, including stocking the farm with insects, which are natural enemies of pests. It is said that a lot of them are incorporated.
Government regulations apply to the use of chemicals in tree plantations.
“All the pesticides used in Christmas tree fields are registered for use on the food you actually eat,” says Bookwalter. “Christmas tree farmers [western North Carolina] Spray with insecticide, probably several times a year. The corn and apple products you eat are sure to be sprayed with this same amount or more during the growing season. ”
Traditional growers are reducing their use of chemicals, she continued. She noted that a recent survey of North Carolina’s top producers showed a 21% reduction in pesticide use.
“The pesticides and herbicides sprayed on Christmas tree farms these days are much more environmentally and consumer-friendly than the pesticides sprayed 30 years ago,” says the Ph.D. says Bookwalter, who focused on mountain conifers. “Additionally, the chemicals…may no longer be present on the tree by the time you bring it home. I would rate Christmas trees as less dangerous than non-organic apples.”
The real danger lurking in trees
Whether someone visits a select farm in the mountains or drives home from a tree lot in a city center with a tree strapped to the roof of their car, the biggest health risk posed by Christmas trees is from mold on the tree. Timothy said it will happen. Craig, DO, Director of Allergy, Immunology, and Respiratory Clinical Research at Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center. The condition caused by mold is sometimes called Christmas tree syndrome, and can be very dangerous for people with asthma.
More than 30 years ago, Craig’s then-infant son suffered an asthma attack caused by an allergy to mold growing on a Christmas tree, and spent Christmas in a pediatric intensive care unit.
“I think the presence of fungi on Christmas trees is universal,” says Craig, who is also a professor of medicine and pediatrics at Penn Medicine in Hershey, Pennsylvania. “We don’t know if you’ll actually find a Christmas tree that doesn’t have fungi.”
People who take an allergy test may be able to tell if they are at risk of being allergic to Christmas tree mold if the test shows they are allergic to mold growing outdoors. Craig cautioned that there are many types of mold that grow outdoors and can be triggered by testing. It doesn’t check every kind.
The most likely way someone will find out that they are allergic to Christmas tree mold is simply by having symptoms of so-called allergic rhinitis. Symptoms include a runny nose, eye irritation, and nasal congestion, all of which can be caused by inhaling mold spores. Craig said people with mild symptoms may choose to take over-the-counter allergy medication rather than throw away the tree. However, he said if an asthma patient’s symptoms worsen around the tree, it should definitely be removed and an artificial tree could be an alternative.
There are other things that can contribute to the symptoms that can occur when cutting down a tree, such as respiratory viruses and dust and mold that have accumulated on ornaments during storage.
“It’s really difficult because at this time of year everyone is more susceptible to viruses and viruses are a big trigger for asthma,” Craig said. “So you’re going to get a Christmas tree now, but at the same time all the kids at school are getting sick, so sometimes it’s not so obvious that it’s a Christmas tree. But the virus There are some subtleties in the symptoms of allergic rhinitis.
Signs that an allergy is working include sneezing and itching, while viruses tend to make you feel sick and cause a cough. Craig said about one in six people have an allergy to mold, but a much larger number, about one in four, have an allergy to dust. She recommended making sure decorations are clean and washing any with a musty odor with bleach diluted with water. Glass ornaments cannot grow mold, but non-glass materials are at risk, he said.
“As long as you are weak, [the bleach] “It doesn’t destroy the color, it’s usually enough to destroy the bacteria and fungi, and washing alone will probably remove many of the allergens,” Craig said.
If you’re concerned about wood mold, you may want to consider spraying your wood with a heavily diluted bleach solution to kill the mold. However, make sure the tree is completely dry before bringing it indoors. Otherwise, various types of mold may occur.
Craig agreed that the chemicals used in growing trees are unlikely to pose health problems to consumers. That’s because the chemicals were likely sprayed months ago and then exposed to rain.
“The chances are very small compared to allergies to mold on wood or dust mites on ornaments. It’s much more likely to be caused by those allergens than by chemicals left on the wood.” I think so,” he says.
engineering super tree
These chemicals are believed to help preserve and preserve Christmas trees, which are in many ways vulnerable amid threats from pests and climate change. In the 1950s, a pest that attacked the underside of the Frasier fir bark wiped out nearly 95% of the trees growing in the wild.
Justin G.A. Whitehill, Ph.D., assistant professor and director of the Christmas Tree Genetics Program at North Carolina State University, says the pesticide-free movement is misleading.
“So I really think the job of the Christmas tree industry is to preserve, protect and promote the Christmas tree, which is one of the most beautiful coniferous trees around us,” he said. Told.
His team is working on manipulating the DNA of Christmas trees to one day produce trees that are resistant to disease and pests.
“There are several diseases in the trees that, if not managed, can wipe out entire Christmas tree farms,” Whitehill explained.
Previous research in the North Carolina program focused on selecting and breeding the Frazier fir, which grows quickly, looks like the iconic four-legged Christmas tree, and has excellent needle retention. Improving your Christmas tree is a lifelong endeavor. It takes 20 to 30 years for the tree to reach its cone shape and be able to reproduce.
Scientists are concerned that climate change will only increase the threat of disease to Christmas trees.
“Fir is at the top of the list of susceptibilities to small changes in climate,” Whitehill says. “Rising temperatures tend to increase the spread of disease, but they are not good for trees, and they are becoming increasingly stressed.”
Most of the Christmas trees grown and sold in the United States are grown in Oregon and North Carolina, with states in the Great Lakes region ranking third in production. According to him, 25 million to 30 million Christmas trees are sold each year in the United States. National Christmas Tree Association, 350 million trees are currently grown commercially. On average, it takes a Frasier fir 7-8 years to reach marketable maturity.
At Cornett’s farm, it can take twice that long for a small number of trees to be sold because the natural processes of the trees are not always consistent from tree to tree, and growing conditions vary even on different hillsides. It may take some time. He has kept one tree unpruned since the beginning of his farm. He calls it a “specimen tree.” This is because this tree has all the characteristics of a wild Fraser fir: tall, slender, and airy.
Cornett loses some trees on his farm each year, but he said deer damage is the main problem, not pests or disease. Other trees don’t look as good as Christmas trees. He donates them to a drug rehabilitation organization from West Virginia that visits his farm, cuts down trees and makes wreaths and wreaths to sell for the program’s fundraiser.
North Carolina hasn’t seen an increase in pesticide-free growers, Bookwalter said.
“I think we can all agree that the fewer chemicals that are sprayed on the land, the better. The farmers I know value their land very much and don’t want to waste money on extra products. No,” she said in an email. “Farmers in 2023 are operating on razor-thin profit margins and must contend with the ever-present problems of rising production costs and rising land prices. Spraying extra chemicals makes financial sense. There is no. The farmer depends on her IPM. [integrated pest management] They are “scouting” their fields to see if they actually need to be sprayed with pesticides. ”
They have stopped planting new trees at Cornett’s Reed Island Farm and are now working to restore the hillside to the way it looked when cattle grazed it years ago. He plans to retire soon.
“I’m 81 years old, and I intend to leave this farm exactly as I found it,” he said.