| |
NW growers said business should be good this year, but
some see problems headed their way.
John Schmitz, The Capital Press, June 28, 2002
For the third year in a row, Northwest Christmas tree
growers are looking forward to a jolly holiday season, but for many industry
veterans memories of saturated markets and ruined Yules past are creeping
up again.
"The whole tenor of this meeting was very positive," said Bryan
Ostlund, executive secretary of the Pacific Northwest Christmas Tree Association,
which held its annual summer meeting and farm tour recently.
As was the case last year, many tree farms are already sold out, and have
been for awhile, Ostlund said.
It wasn't that long ago that most growers didn't know what kind of year
they were going to have until the annual PNWCTA trade fair in September,
when many buyers converged on Portland, Ore., looking to take advantage
of an oversupplied market.
"It's definitely still a sellers' market," said PNWCTA president
Ken Scholz of Orting, Wash. "There are still not enough trees to
meet demand in the marketplace, everything, even Grand fir, is on the
short side."
Ostlund said that 3 straight years of good markets has brought some new
faces into the industry. "Some are existing farmers who are converting
some of their production from crops such as grass seed to Christmas trees".
Despite all the revelry, however, there is cause for concern in the Northwest
Christmas tree industry. Many say accelerated plantings the last several
years will eventually produce an oversupply of trees.
"People who want to put in Christmas trees need to be really careful,"
Ostlund said. "This isn't the time to be getting into the industry."
That said, Ostlund added that it's hard to predict what Christmas tree
markets will be like 7-10 years down the road, which is how long it takes
to grow a marketable Christmas tree, depending on the species.
"We might produce a lot more trees than we did during the last oversupply
situation, but what that new (supply-demand) threshold will be is anybody's
guess'".
As for prices, Ostlund said it's tough to get a handle on them but it
appears they're on the rise. "I thought they would plateau a bit
this year, but I think prices may creep up another dollar, dollar-fifty
a tree."
"Nobles are in very short supply, and Dougs are balanced if not in
short supply," said Silverton, Ore., Christmas tree grower Charlie
Grogan.
Grogan, a veteran grower who has been through both the good and the lean
times, believes that glutted markets are coming. "In my opinion,
the trees that will create the oversupply went into the ground this year."
A former PNWCTA president and head of the marketing committee, Grogan
said that during the last over-supply period, which ended in the mid-
to late 1980s, growers were selling trees for less than it cost to grow
them. "We came out the other end (of the glut) with about two-thirds
of the growers we started with."
PNWCTA president Ken Scholz of Orting, Wash., a large Fraser fir grower,
is more pessimistic than Grogan about when the oversupply situation will
hit. "I think the beginning of the surplus will be in two to four
years."
Grogan said that a recent shortage of Noble fir cones prevented more Noble
seedlings from being planted, keeping production in check. However, the
cone shortage has since abated. Scholz believes that high Noble fir prices
are going to drive more consumers toward Douglas firs and possibly even
artificial trees.
Despite the increasing number of new plantings, Northwest Christmas tree
sales continue to keep pace, with a lot of the growth coming from Mexico,
Ostlund said. "That country is very important to us right now. There's
a lot of growth potential there. We have a million-plus Christmas trees
going into Mexico right now." Close to 10% of the trees from Oregon
and Washington are shipped to Mexico.
Also contributing to the good fortune of Northwest Christmas tree growers
is declining production in the Midwest, which has suffered a fall-off
in popularity of its signature Scotch pine trees.
|
|
