Drought and hot weather threatens future of Christmas trees, farmer warns

"If we have more summers like the last two, we'll be struggling as a nation to produce enough Christmas trees."

Andrew Ingram owns The Tree Barn in Christmas Common, Oxfordshire, which is home to about 120,000 trees.

But this year's hot summer and drought has reduced that total by more than a thousand.

"It's been an extraordinary year," he said. "We planted in perfect conditions in March and then it didn't rain for 12 weeks until the first week of June.

"Then after that it didn't rain until September, it's very depressing."

Russell Parkins, chair of the British Christmas Tree Association, agreed that growers across the country had faced a "tough year".

He said his organisation was working on "ongoing research to help ensure British-grown Christmas trees continue to thrive in a changing climate".

The full impact of the drought is unlikely to be felt immediately, with the biggest consequences potentially coming in years to come.

Some Christmas trees can take up to nine years to reach six feet tall, meaning the loss of young saplings could affect production well into the next decade.

"A transplant we put in will be around a year old and it's replacing a tree that is three to four years old so that's affecting production and could lead to shortages in the future," said Ingram.

"It means we have to walk the rows, pull out the dead trees, replace them by hand…it's a laborious job, a time consuming job and an expensive job."

"We tend to plant in the spring but that's becoming a more dangerous time to plant," Ingram said.

"It would be better to plant in Autumn because that allows the tree to get established and routed in through the winter."

He said there were also concerns that warmer temperatures this winter could mean less frosts.

Frosts help to keep Christmas trees in a dormant state, helping them to hold onto their needles for longer once they've entered our homes for the festive period.

"I think there's a real danger we'll see more trees losing their needles this year," Ingram said.

"We're going to have to figure out ways to carry on growing even if the weather turns against us."

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