Growers’ Prospects Face a Trim

California Christmas tree growers have faced some formidable obstacles in the last decade, including escalating land and water costs and competition from more popular out-of-state trees. Now, an even knottier problem has emerged--one that threatens their ability to grow their favored tree, the Monterey pine.

Conservationists, in an attempt to save the tree from development and disease, are petitioning the state to list it as threatened, a move that could prevent growers from taking an ax to the bright, bushy trees, even the ones that growers plant themselves.

In addition, a quarantine on Monterey pine seedlings, designed to protect the species from deadly pine pitch canker disease, will keep many tree farms from planting early next year and maybe longer, a move that could put many growers out of business.

Indeed, the Monterey pine’s disease problems are delivering one of the most serious blows yet to Southern California Christmas tree growers, whose ranks have thinned considerably in the last decade. Membership in the California Christmas Tree Assn. has dropped from a high of 850 in the 1980s to 250 this year.

The loss of the Monterey pine is especially significant because it accounts for 60% of the estimated 500,000 Christmas trees grown in California each year. Although it’s not the most popular tree sold here--noble and Douglas firs imported from other states outsell them--it is one of the few varieties that can be grown successfully in warm, dry Southern California. It is also one of the fastest-growing, allowing farmers to recoup their investment quickly.

But as hardy and fast-growing as they are, Monterey pines haven’t developed the resistance to pine pitch canker that trees in other parts of the country have, according to the California Native Plant Society. The fungal disease, spread by beetles, is expected to kill 85% of the state’s 13,000 acres of trees in the next decade or two, including trees cultivated on Christmas tree farms.

“It’s already wiped out a lot of people,” said Paul Battaglia, president of the California Christmas Tree Assn.

In their attempt to list the Monterey pine as threatened, conservation officials say they are hoping to save the species--at least in its three native stands near Monterey, Ana Nuevo and Cambria.

But the protected status could have the unintended effect of prohibiting Monterey pine growers from chopping the 200,000 to 250,000 trees they plant each year on their farms, said Robert Treanor, executive director of the California Fish & Game Commission. The commission’s legal counsel is reviewing that consequence in preparation for its February meeting, in which it will discuss the petition request.

“We’ve never been faced with that issue before,” Treanor said. He cannot recall any commercially grown tree receiving protected status in California. The threat presented by that protected status has Christmas tree growers and New Zealand timber farmers, which export seed to California, lining up to protest the move.

Officials with the California Native Plant Society, which filed the petition, insist they’re not trying to keep growers and landscapers from making a living, just trying to protect native forests.

“This listing is meant to preserve native stands, not a tree in someone’s backyard or on a tree farm,” said Rosemary Donlon, president of the Monterey chapter of the California Native Plant Society.

Donlon said an exemption could be made for tree producers using uncontaminated seeds. However, growers worry that such an exemption would be time-consuming and ultimately expensive to obtain.

Just as pressing, growers say, is the quarantine on seedlings that will prevent most Monterey pine growers from planting a new batch of trees in January. Unwilling to risk infecting their areas, most counties are banning Monterey pine seedlings from being brought in.

Some growers are cultivating their own seedlings rather than turning to outside suppliers. And increasingly, tree farmers are rounding out their selection of Monterey pines with Leyland cypress, a fragrance-free plant that resembles a traditional Christmas tree. Is this delicate, lacy shrub the future of California’s Christmas tree business?

Growers don’t think so.

“It will never take the place of the Monterey,” said Charles Mautz, owner of Green & Fresh Tree Farm in Pasadena. “[The Monterey] has a nice scent and a beautiful green color.”

If the quarantines remain in place, and growers are prohibited from cutting their own stock, this Christmas may be one of the last hurrahs for the Monterey pine. A shortage of trees from the Pacific Northwest has driven up prices of the more popular Noble and Frazier firs, making the Monterey pine more attractive, even with price tags that are 10% to 20% higher than last year. Monterey pines cost from $20 to $30, depending on size, while Noble firs range from $40 to $70.

Sales are up 30% at Holloway’s Christmas Tree Farm in Nipomo, Calif., which boasts 40,000 Monterey pines and is one of California’s largest plantations, selling seedlings to farms around the state.

Business is so brisk that Holloway says he hasn’t had time to think about, much less put up much of a fight against the threatened listing or quarantines. With selling trees, taking kids on hay rides and coordinating the nightly bonfire outside his Santa’s Village, his schedule is booked.

But, he says, he plans to take up the fight after the first of the year.

“I’m sitting here looking at the 40,000 trees I grow a year. If I can’t grow them, all of this [land] is going to go to houses.”

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Grown in California

Fast-growing, drought-resistant Monterey pines make up 60% of the estimated 500,000 Christmas trees grown in California.

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Source: California Christmas Tree Assn.