Delaware Tree Grower Advises Early Purchase of Your 2021 Christmas Tree

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trees in a barn
Image via hananome at Creative Commons.
The 2021 Christmas tree purchasing season may be difficult and expensive, even for artificial ones.

It might be a little early to purchase a Christmas tree, but farmers in nearby Delaware warn that supplies are short. Worse, scarcity is seen in both real and artificial trees. Rodaris Richardson found the root causes for WDRE Coast TV.

Don Halloway, tree farm owner, says a number of factors will make the 2021 hunt for a real tree more difficult. And more expensive.

He cites reasons that include COVID-19, as well as the overall generational shift away from agribusinesses such as tree farms.

That latter trend is something he understands. “It’s too much work,” he said.

And financial viability is getting more tenuous.

“With the supply and demand issue over the last five, six years we’re having less and less inventory to sell every year,” said Halloway. “On the wholesale end, we’re having shipping issues, where we’re seeing shipping cost as up as much as 75 percent.”

Other factors leading to the tree drought are things Halloway and other growers had little control over. He says that 2021 brought growing difficulties related to heat, insects, and soil conditions.

“We planted 1200 Christmas trees in the spring of this year, we lost about 900 hundred trees,” said Halloway.

Even artificial tree buyers might have difficulties: Supply chain snarls and inflated shipping prices are gumming up its market as well.

More on 2021’s hunt for a Christmas tree is at WDRE Coast TV.

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