A Real Christmas Tree is the Natural Choice

Each holiday season a difficult choice confronts shoppers: celebrate with a real tree or an artificial tree? Nathan Meiser, AgChoice loan officer who has worked in the forest products industry for many years, shares why a real Christmas tree is the natural choice.

What are the benefits to using a real Christmas tree instead of an artificial tree?

The main benefit is that real trees positively contribute to the environment from the time they're planted until after the holiday season when they're recycled. While they're growing, Christmas trees support life by absorbing carbon dioxide and other gasses, and emitting fresh oxygen. It's estimated that every acre of Christmas trees will produce a daily oxygen requirement of 18 people. In the United States, there's approximately about 1 million acres of Christmas trees, meaning about 18 million people receive their daily need of oxygen from Christmas trees.

There's always a debate between real and artificial trees. The one big benefit to real Christmas trees is that they're biodegradable. You can recycle them by planting them. You could use them for wildlife habitat. For artificial trees, when it's determined that that tree needs to go or it's time for a new one, and they go to a landfill or they get thrown away. It's a long time until those materials decompose. Many people think "Oh, I'll buy an artificial tree and I'll have that forever." However, the statistics show an artificial tree only lasts for about six years, so most people regularly replace artificial trees.

In the overall big picture, Christmas trees are a real positive for the environment.

Could you share with us a bit more about the Christmas tree industry here in Pennsylvania?

Nationwide, Pennsylvania ranks third in the nation for the number of Christmas tree farms. According to the Pennsylvania Christmas Tree Growers Association, there's about 1,400 Christmas tree farms in the state, accounting for about 31,000 acres of Christmas trees. On a yearly basis, those Christmas tree farms harvest about 1 million trees per year. It's a big impact on our economy, and also the environment for Pennsylvania.

Pennsylvania is ideal for growing Christmas trees. We have the right weather, and a lot of the right soils. Additionally, Christmas trees also help stabilize the soil, protect our water supplies and provide habitat for the wildlife.

Many times Christmas trees are grown on soils that don't support other crops. You'll see landscapes where Christmas trees can grow where it would be difficult to grow corn or soybeans. Christmas trees provide a good alternative.

According to the Pennsylvania Christmas Tree Growers Association, for every Christmas tree that is harvested each year, most of those farms plant somewhere between one to three new seedlings each year for each tree.

If you're looking for a Christmas tree farm your area, check out http://www.christmastrees.org. The website includes a directory of Christmas tree farms in Pennsylvania. In my local area, we have had some Christmas tree farms not transition to the next generation or they've sold their properties, so it's hard to know what other farms are out there. This is a helpful site to see all of your local Christmas tree farms in one spot.