The Grumpy of the Holiday Season could this year take the form of spring frosts and summer droughts which affected “at least 10%” of Christmas tree plantations from Quebec producers, reducing a supply that was already not meeting demand. Result: 2021 will be marked by a shortage of trees to decorate.
“It will not be easy to find a Christmas tree this year,” warns Charles Vaillancourt, president of the Association of Christmas Tree Producers of Quebec (APANQ), specifying that “the year has been particularly difficult” for number of producers.
The spring frosts were particularly damaging to production in Beauce and Estrie, a region which alone represents more than 50% of Quebec fir production. “What it creates is that new shoots [l’extrémité des branches] turn brown or burn completely. You have to wait for them to dry and fall, ”he explains.
“Aesthetically speaking, it’s not ideal,” says Stéphane Bernier, owner of Plantation Bernier, a producer of fir trees in Lac-Brome: “People want a green fir in their living room. The cutting of part of the production must be postponed by one year. What is more, by “burning the shoots”, the frosts slow down the growth of conifers. “It’s a bit like a lost year,” he notes.
Freezes are cyclical and typically occur every 10 years. However, the industry is suffering the repercussions of the vagaries of the weather for a second year in a row, recalls Émilie Turcotte-Côté, vice-president of APANQ and agronomist at BL Christmas Trees.
This Sherbrooke company cultivates nearly 1,000 hectares of plantations in Estrie, Gaspésie and Center-du-Québec. “As a result, our production was not affected in the same way from one region to another, which allowed us to reduce the impact,” she says.
She adds: “At least 10% of the fields of some producers have frozen. And 10% is conservative. We have fields that have completely frozen over. Of course, it’s more difficult for smaller producers, ”she says.
“And we must not forget the summer droughts that followed,” recalls Mr. Vaillancourt. We haven’t had a lot of water for two years, so the trees are having trouble getting their nutrients. Me, I have several small plans which died because there is lack of water in the ground. “
For fear of a difficult third year, producers are reviewing their ways of doing things. They take no chances and cut the tree as soon as it reaches five or six feet. “Yes, that can affect the supply of larger trees on the market,” says Mr. Vaillancourt.
In the long term, the repercussions of climate change could lead producers to review their methods, says Mr.me Turcotte-Côté: “The budding [moment où les bourgeons s’ouvrent] balsam fir arrives earlier in the spring, so they are more susceptible to freezing. One of the options could be to grow more Fraser firs or hybrid firs, but that comes with new growing methods, ”she explains.
Quebec is not the only producing province to have suffered the repercussions of the vagaries of the weather this year. The scorching summer and droughts in British Columbia, for example, would have wiped out 70% of some growers’ crops.
Supply on the North American market is declining, while demand has increased in recent years. And this year should be no exception. The difficulty of getting hold of artificial trees – due to delivery delays due to the shortage of containers in shipping – may well stimulate demand for natural trees.
Rising price
Result: prices should be pulled up. What will Quebecers have to pay for their Christmas trees? “It depends on the regions. Trees are cheaper in Sherbrooke than in Montreal. But it also depends on how much the retailers take. I would be inclined to say that the price for a six-foot tree could gravitate between 60 and 80 dollars ”, estimates Charles Vaillancourt.
“For our part, we have increased the price of trees by 15% compared to last year,” says Daniel Thibeault, president of Bôsapin, a company that sells trees on the Internet and provides home delivery. “It’s nearly 20,000 trees that we will be selling this year, but I could have easily sold 30,000 if I had had them,” he says, estimating the number of trees he has at nearly 5,000. will not be able to cut because of the spring frosts.
The price increase is in addition to those of recent years. In the United States, the average price of a tree jumped 123%, from US $ 35 in 2013 to $ 78 in 2018, according to the National Christmas Tree Association. And everything suggests that a comparable increase has been observed on our side of the border.
Since the economic crisis of 2008, many small producers who cultivated areas of less than 50 acres have retired, gone bankrupt or have been bought out. “If we add up these small producers, that represents a good portion of the trees that were found on the markets,” says Mr. Vaillancourt.
And since nearly 10 years pass between sowing and the maturity of a tree, it is now that we feel the repercussions of what took place at the turn of the 2010s, explains the president of the ‘APANQ.
With more than 260 Christmas tree growers, Quebec is the main Christmas tree producing province in Canada, followed by Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.
About 70% of Quebec production – nearly 1.8 million trees – is exported. Almost all of these exports (98%) are sold on the American market, mainly in the states of New York, Massachusetts and North Carolina.
“The remaining 2% are trees that can be sold in Bermuda, the Bahamas, or even a few in Dubai,” says Vaillancourt.