Pennsylvania and much of the northeastern U.S. are experiencing an unusual stretch of dry weather that’s causing concerns about low drinking water levels and farm crop losses. Pennsylvania is one of the nation’s top producers of Christmas trees, so, with the holiday season upon us, The Allegheny Front wanted to check how the trees are faring.
Driving down into the valley toward Lake Forest Gardens in western Pennsylvania’s Beaver County is a Christmas-lover’s dream. Despite what experts are saying is a moderate drought in this area, the hills are alive with field after field of deep green Christmas trees.
In one stand, rows of beautiful eight-foot-tall Canaan fir trees have been trimmed to picture-perfect triangles over the eight to 10 years since they were planted.
“Even though we did have this long extended drought through the summer and fall, you can see that these more established trees are not showing a lot of effects of that drought,” said Jason Dambach, who grew up working here and is the fourth generation in his family to run the tree farm.
Fields of younger trees haven’t fared as well. Dambach points to one sapling that was planted this spring.
“This one has a little bit of yellowing,” he notices. “That could be the stress. It could be a lack of nutrients that it might need.”
According to Dambach, 2,000 of their young trees died this year, that’s about 20% of new plantings. He thinks the shallow young tree roots might have needed more moisture.
Tracking drought in the U.S.
Like Dambach, Brian Fuchs, a climatologist with the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, has been hoping for more rain.
Fuchs and his team watch precipitation and other factors across the country and create a map each week that is colored in places with drought.
“There’s a lot of color on the map,” he said in mid-November. “And that means that the drought is pretty much widespread, and we are impacting a lot of the country right now.”
Despite recent rains in Pennsylvania, the Drought Center map published November 21 labeled nearly the entire state as abnormally dry.
“To be on the map and showing drought, that’s saying that the current data is basically falling into the driest 20 to 25 events ever in that location,” Fuchs explained.
According to the map, much of eastern Pennsylvania is in severe drought. The area around Philadelphia is in extreme drought, as are parts of Washington, Fayette, Greene and Westmoreland counties.
According to the Northeast Regional Climate Center (NRCC) at Cornell University, this is a drought level not seen in the state since 2002.
Climate change weather patterns
That’s not to say it hasn’t rained at all.
Another Christmas tree grower in Aliquippa told The Allegheny Front that his farm has gotten plenty of rain.
Other places, like Philadelphia, got only “trace precipitation” for the entire month of October, and about eight inches less precipitation than a typical year, according to NRCC climatologist Jessica Spaccio.
“So, it’s not just like one good rainfall is going to do it,” she said.
At Jason Dambach’s farm, they were getting ready to set up the irrigation system this summer to get some water on the trees. “And then we had this pop-up thunderstorm that was almost like a microburst, and it rained over an inch, and it wasn’t even projected in the forecast,” Dambach said. “You hope for steady rain all the time, but sometimes you get that hard rain that might not necessarily soak into the ground as much.”
If storms release heavy rains too quickly, it can sometimes damage fields, washing out the dirt or new plantings, “The thunderstorms, depending if you have freshly worked ground, you might get some washouts,” Dambach said.
These periods of dry weather interspersed with heavy rains are “indicative of a climate change pattern,” said NRCC’s Spaccio.
“The rainfall is coming down sometimes in these very short timescales, and we’re getting a lot of rain, but it’s falling quickly,” she said. “And then we can still have several stretches of dry weather in between. So that’s exactly how we get both drought and flooding at the same time.”
The Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture doesn’t have statistics on crop or tree losses due to drought, but, “The mix of drought and flooding, sometimes in the same area, has been a constant concern this year,” said agency spokesperson Shannon Powers.
“We really need some consistent wetness to make up for this. And we don’t want it to all fall at once, especially in the form of rain,” Spaccio said. Her team will be watching this winter: if precipitation comes down as snow, it won’t run off the land quickly like rain. But if the ground freezes first, and then it rains, water runoff can be even more of a problem.
The outlook for Christmas trees
The Pennsylvania Christmas tree industry is not alone in its climate challenges. Three major Christmas tree-growing states had climate issues this year.
When Hurricane Helene hit North Carolina in late September, it caused nearly $30 million in damage to the state’s Christmas tree industry, according to Christmas tree researcher Justin Whitehill, assistant professor in the College of Natural Resources at North Carolina State University.
“In total, 6 to 8 [N.C. tree farms] suffered significant losses,” he said. “Most of the 940 growers across the industry suffered minor damages.” Whitehill expects disruptions to supply to be minimal.
Meanwhile, he thinks drought, like the one in Pennsylvania, could make trees more susceptible to a root rot disease called phytophthora, which means “plant destroyer.” Penn State University extension educator Sandy Feather said root rot has been found in Pennsylvania.
The Pacific Northwest is another major Christmas tree-growing region. “Oregon is probably doing better from a drought standpoint,” said Mac Harman, an officer of the American Christmas Tree Association and CEO of Balsam Hill, the Christmas decor brand. “But the issue they’re having is forest fires, which is also climate change-related.”
Still, Harman expects plenty of Christmas trees this year and offers a climate tip about buying a Christmas tree: If it’s cold outside after the tree is cut, the needles will stay on longer.
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