Summer heat hurts Christmas tree growers

GREENFIELD, Ind. (WISH) - It's estimated that Indiana lost 10 percent of its grown Christmas trees and 90 percent of its seedlings due to this summer’s high heat and drought.

24-Hour News 8 talked to Bob Wendt, owner of the Lost Forty Tree Farm in Greenfield, about his crop this year.

Wendt estimated even higher seedling losses, at 100 percent for this year.

The drought killed the seedlings even though he and his family hand carried water to the trees. Many, Wendt said, ‘just cooked.’

Consistent temperatures above 100 degrees also killed many of his grown trees.

However consumers should not expect to pay higher prices when they go to buy a Christmas tree. The cost of a drought, he said, is factored into the overall price on a long-term basis.

Wendt has been in business since the early 1980s, but 2012 was one of the worst summers he’s seen.

Real Christmas trees, both nationwide and locally, are big business, outselling fake trees by greater than a 3:1 margin.

About 27 million Christmas trees are sold nationwide each year; roughly 200,000 of those are harvested in Indiana.