Last December, I read this excellent story by Jennifer Skene at KQED Quest: The Search for the Perfect Christmas Tree.
...most Christmas trees are indeed different species—noble firs, grand firs, Douglas firs, and spruce are popular choices—but their perfect structure has more to do with the way they’re grown than their genetic makeup.
On a Christmas tree farm, it takes a lot of work to get the trees to grow. The trees are “hedged” or pruned so they grow full and bushy, and their trunks are trained to grow straight. Most conifer species grow at high elevations, but most Christmas tree farms are at lower elevations; the trees need to be nurtured with fertilizer so they’ll grow in soil and weather conditions that are not the same as the conditions where they evolved.
I thought, maybe for 2012 I would get my tree from the Cal Forestry Club at UC Berkeley:
The Forestry Club's annual Christmas Tree sale is the main fundraiser the club. Students travel to the Sierra Nevada to harvest trees (generously donated by Sierra Pacific Industries). Trees are selected by students to be trees that would not normally survive to adulthood (usually because they are too close to other trees), thus they are considered sustainably harvested.
Tree species harvested are mainly White Fir, Red Fir, and Incense Cedar. Tree sizes range from one foot to 10 feet, with larger trees available upon request.
If you are interested in ordering a specific size/species, please contact us at [email protected].
The students cut the trees early in December. In 2011, the sale started the first Sunday in December and ran for a week.
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