Oregon has
over 700 licensed Christmas tree growers. Together they produce 8 million trees
a year. Ninety percent of the trees are sold out-of-state, including 900,000 to
customers in foreign countries. Every country and some states have import
requirements, and Oregon Department of Agriculture Nursery/Christmas tree
program staff spend October through early December inspecting trees and certifying crop for export. There
are no better Christmas tree inspectors in the world, but every year the Grinch
slips through the system and ruins someone’s Christmas.
This year, it’s
the Hawaii Department of Agriculture inspectors that are working overtime and
dreaming of a vacation from Christmas. On first arrival in Honolulu, 40 percent
of the Oregon Christmas tree containers were found to have hitchhiking slugs. A
smaller number had yellow jacket queens, root weevils, and other live critters.
As the season progressed, the percentage of quarantined containers declined
until only 12 percent of the last shipment of 54 containers were quarantined.
What
happened? Biology and reality. Christmas trees are living organisims grown in a
verdant environment. Spiders, ants, slugs, tree frogs, and lots of other animals
live in Christmas tree plantations – tree are, after all, homes for many kinds
of wildlife. Inspectors can spot twig weevil or needle midge infestations in
fields, but a slug on a Christmas tree, especially an immature tree like the
ones uses in Hawaii to celebrate the holiday season, is virtually impossible to
discover. Oregon Christmas trees, though of high quality, are not sterile. In
fact, they are far from it.
The reality
is that the inspection and certification process only screens out trees from
unhealthy fields; it doesn’t guard against hitchhikers.
Hawaii’s
inspectors are commited to their mission of protecting their islands from
invasive species. They are doing the right thing by stopping infested
containers. Unfortunately for them, the demand for Christmas trees is so great
that they are working overtime and weekends to hot water-wash our trees before
releasing them. I feel bad about that. This kind of invasive species issue
should be taken care of at origin rather than at destination.
I’ve had it
with the Shipping Grinch. We need to kick this Grinch out of our holiday. We
invest a great deal of time and resources protecting Oregon from invasive
species because it is important. We also need to make sure we aren’t exporting
potential invaders to our customers. After all, we would expect the same from
them.
We’re going
to have to figure out a better system of preventing hitchhikers from leaving
Oregon on Christmas trees. There is hope. Some growers haven’t had any
rejections. They are using a combination of mechanical shaking, slug baits,
stacking trees on pallets, or power-washing to discourage hitchhikers. We need
to figure out what’s working and turn what we learn into best management
practices that all growers can follow.
Best of
luck to you for a Grinch-free Christmas! And don’t forget to thump your
Christmas tree in the driveway before bringing it indoors. All the little
hitchhikers that fall out with the dead needles will thank you – and so will
your spouse, your neighborhood, your county, your state . . .
Dan Hilburn
