2005年NPR美国国家公共电台十一月-Bringing Holiday Trees to Market

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Anchor: (The) commercial Christmas Tree harvest has already peaked, a third of the Christmas trees sold in the United States are grown in the pacific northwest, Tom Banse reports on the challenges tree farmers face this year.

Anchor: The holidays might bring warm thoughts of twinkling boughs¹ and fragrant² smells, but at the evergreen³ source it's more like a noisy battle zone. This helicopter is lifting Christmas trees off of hills in southwest Washington state that trucks can't get to, a lot of large growers use choppers to move trees fast, and includes Mark Steelhammer, a tree farmer with a tough name to suit a tough business.

Mark Steelhammer: Yeah, helicopters are around 600 dollars an hour plus, but they move a lot of trees, probably a thousand trees an hour at least.

Anchor: The heavy lifting is not the hardest part, at least not this year, Steelhammer's nervous about shipping⁴ prices and truck availability.

Mark Steelhammer: With the hurricanes back there, it's, it's good they, when that happened, it probably happened that early and not just a month or so ago, but they are still using a lot of trucks, of course, to bring supplies in for that, so we are competing with that.

Anchor: There is the daily battle to get fresh trees to market and then there is a larger war to recapture market share from artificial trees. Steelhammer's president elect of the National Christmas Tree Association, he says tree growers are stepping up the offensive against fake trees by donating money to a special marketing⁵ fund.

Mark Steelhammer: I have a real hard problem with thinking about tradition with young kids especialy going to a store and getting a boxed up plastic one that came in from China, you know, and anyway I like that real, real branches, real needles, and real smell, you know.

Anchor: He says artificial trees present a serious threat. They now grace(用来装饰) about one in three households, the fake tree doesn't cost much more, it might even come with lights built in. Local growers have another challenge, a swelling⁶ inventory⁷ of Christmas trees, Steelhammer says a surplus developed because many tree famers responded to the recent decade of good prices by planting more seedlings⁸, now wholesale⁹ prices are sinking anywhere from 5 to 30 percent.

Mark Steelhammer: Prices've come down a little, but we'll still make some money, those that've watched their operating expenses etc over the years and not gone out, gone too crazy on big new equipment stuff, or, we'll do fine, you know.

Anchor: Soft prices for wholesalers probably won't translate it into a deal for you, that's because the increased cost of trucking, offsets¹⁰ the lower price retailers¹¹ pay to acquire trees.

Anchor: Rochester Washington tree grower, John Tilman figures that he will be all right too as long as he keeps up his frenzy¹² pays. He works pretty much non-stop from early November to the second weekend December cutting, baling and shipping Christmas trees.

"...and we cut them at the last moment. It's like the, the truck's cutting, uh, coming tomorrow."

Anchor: A truck that will take these noble firs to Fresno. Earlier, his crew filled a refrigerated container destined¹³ for Hong Kong. Tilman praises noble fir for looking fresh at Christmas even when cut early in November.

"The main thing is just always have a fresh cut in bottoms and put it in the water, stand(To cause to stand; place upright. ) it, keep it in water out of the direct sun. The retailers we hope don't store them on asphalt, things like that. Ur...especially the nobles and nobles stay good and fresh for quite a while."

Anchor: Tilman says some loads destined across countries stop at an ice factory to get a frosting of crushed ice (which) keeps the needles moist and doesn't melt. And with that Tillman begs off to repair a bulky bailer¹⁴.

"I've got actually one of the hardest work, so..."

"Yeah, ok."

Anchor: So little time and 27,000 trees to harvest, for NPR News, I'm Tom Banse.