Plenty of Christmas Trees
Plenty of Christmas Trees. I'm Greg Martin with Washington Ag Today.
Time to put up the Christmas tree. This year looks like it will be a good one for the tree producers here in the region according to Bryan Ostlund, Executive Director of the Pacific Northwest Christmas Tree Association.
OSTLUND: We've shifted from an over-supply to, I hate to use such a term as right-supply a made u[ term but that's really where we're at. It's interesting that it's much more sensitive than you'd think and getting too far off that intersection of supply and demand. Either way, it can rapidly being from either a sellers market to a buyers market.
More than 90% of the trees harvested here in the northwest will leave the area.
OSTLUND: Generally half of our harvest goes to California by itself. Obviously some very large metropolitan markets but the southwest in general is very important all the way over through Texas. Our biggest foreign trade partner would be Mexico but I would even expect Mexico's sales to be off a bit this year simply because there is such strong demand here in the continental United States.
There are still some tariff issues with Mexico but Ostlund says that selection and prices are good this year.
OSTLUND: Yes, prices have gone up but if you kind of look back historically what we've charged for Christmas trees going back 25 - 30 years (we're) just basically tying to get back to where we were even 10 years ago so yes, prices will be up some this year but boy, we're still not where we were back in 2000 and that area.
And that's Washington Ag Today. I'm Greg Martin, thanks for listening on the Ag Information Network of the West.
