The Race to Save America’s Favorite Christmas Tree

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August in the mountains of Alleghany County conjures thoughts of cool breezes, an escape from summer. But this Friday afternoon is hot and sticky.

Pickup trucks fill the parking lot and line the pavement outside Alexander Hall, where scores of North Carolina Christmas tree farmers have gathered for their summer meeting. December is on their mind, not August heat.

Inside, 10 picture-perfect trees stand in a row. They’re part of the annual national competition to send a Christmas tree to the White House, a contest won the past two years by growers from North Carolina.

It’s a source of pride among the state’s more than 900 farms, part of a confidence built by growing the country’s favorite Christmas tree–the Fraser fir. Known for its aroma, needle retention, and conical shape, the Fraser is native to North Carolina and accounts for nearly all of the more than 3 million Christmas trees grown and sold annually in the state.

It is, said N.C. State University extension specialist Jamie Bookwalter, “a unicorn of a tree.”

But the Fraser fir is under attack.

Temperatures are rising. The climate is drier, but when it rains, it tends to pour. Phytophthora root rot, a fungus-like organism that evolved from brown algae, is thriving, and it’s killing Fraser firs more and more often during the 10 years or so that it takes to grow them to a size favored by most consumers. Once it takes hold, it’s nearly impossible to eradicate. 

Joe Freeman founded Mistletoe Meadows tree farm in Ashe County in 1988. In the 36 years since, it has gotten progressively more difficult to keep a Fraser fir alive and healthy long enough to get it to your den for Christmas.

“It’s four times as hard now,” Freeman said. He said there are few places on his farm now where he can plant Fraser seedlings with the expectation that they will reach maturity. 

He’s tried grafting the Fraser firs onto other firs more resistant to Phytophthora, with some success. But it’s a time-consuming, costly process, one he calls a “Band-Aid solution.”

Freeman said the growers need a better answer. That’s where Justin Whitehill’s team comes in.

‘Plant Destroyer’

Whitehill, 41, grew up in Ohio and earned his doctorate in plant pathology, studying what kills trees and how they defend themselves. He worked for 10 years in Canada studying conifers and how to keep them alive. 

He is soft-spoken but speaks in matter-of-fact terms. 

His concern about trees started at a basic level. “We do like to breathe,” he said. 

He now runs the Christmas tree genetics lab at N.C. State University. He has attracted about 20 grants, including one to tinker with creating a Fraser fir that would glow on its own. But lights and the existential value of trees aside, he’s now trying to help one part of the tree industry survive.

In August, he was in the unincorporated community of Glade Valley to discuss his research into whether consumers really prefer the aroma of Fraser firs (they do). But the real news was a new grant his team had won from the U.S. Department of Agriculture: $7.4 million over four years to continue engineering a better Fraser fir. 

The grant includes six universities, but 70 percent of the money will go to NCSU, he said. 

“It’s a big deal in the Christmas tree world,” said Erin Sills, head of the university’s Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources. “N.C. State has invested decades and decades in breeding better Christmas trees … so this grant comes at the perfect time to capitalize on that investment.”

The science involved is deep and dense, but it revolves around figuring out the best genetic makeup for Fraser fir seeds, one that retains all the tree’s best qualities while arming it with better defenses against Phytophthora. As Whitehill notes, the name of the pathogen, in Latin, means “plant destroyer.”

“I see developing genetic solutions [as] probably the only hope we have against this pathogen at the moment,” he told The Assembly.

Freeman is hopeful. He’ll serve as chair of the advisory board on Whitehill’s grant. 

How important is this research? “On a scale of 1 to 10,” Freeman said, “it’s 11.”

A Tree Turns Orange

Sam Cartner Jr. steers his silver 2014 Chevy Suburban slowly in the rutted paths between rows of Fraser firs. On this early September morning in Newland, temperatures have dropped into the 50s in the lush mountains of Avery County.

Most of the trees are 6-footers and taller, deep green and sturdy. But occasionally as we bounce along, we spot one, two or three that are a far different color. Phytophthora, the plant destroyer, is in the roots.

“N.C. State has invested decades and decades in breeding better Christmas trees.”

Erin Sills, N.C. State Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources

“Perfect seedlings, great site selection, trees that have been there for six years, beautiful, and suddenly one tree will turn orange in two weeks,” Cartner told The Assembly. “I’m not sure we’re close to understanding it.”

The Cartner family has been growing Christmas trees here since 1959, when his parents, Sam and Margaret, started the farm. Many farms in the area once grew burley tobacco, but as that crop receded, trees looked better. Cartner now manages the farm with his brothers, Jim and David. 

They own six farms on about 350 acres and sell about 40,000 trees a year. They operate a choose-and-cut farm where customers can pick their trees, but the Cartners sell the overwhelming majority wholesale to garden centers; they ship trees as far away as Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and Park City, Utah. 

But there is one particular choose-and-cut customer that will bring pride and publicity to the Cartner farm this year: the White House. Cartner’s Christmas Tree Farm won the annual national contest and later this month will send a 20-foot Fraser fir to Washington, D.C., to adorn the fabled Blue Room. 

It will be the 16th time a Fraser fir from North Carolina has been picked for the White House tree, more than any other species, according to the N.C. Christmas Tree Association.

A tree that tall is rare and likely is at least 20 years old. Most Frasers get cut and sold when they’re below 10 feet tall, and many that don’t get sold soon after that get cut to make room for new planting. But the Cartners have let some grow bigger, and in September we headed up near the top of their farm on Spanish Oak Road to see what White House grounds superintendent Dale Haney would see when he came in late October to pick out a tree.

From this vantage point of the property, at an altitude of nearly 4,500 feet, Cartner has views of Roan Mountain to the northwest and Grandfather Mountain to the east. It’s a stunning landscape with thousands of Fraser firs in the foreground, including several big enough to satisfy the White House. 

The Cartners’ crew didn’t cut the tree, however. They had to hire a local nursery to do the honors. “You need a crane,” Cartner said. 

Cartner said Phytophthora isn’t the only threat to his trees. Warmer temperatures bring more insects–they used to treat for one type of pest; now it’s “nine or 10”–and damage from deer is becoming more common because of habitat destruction and fewer predators. 

Add root rot, he said, and the percentage of trees to make it from seedling to full-grown has dropped significantly. Years ago, he said, the Cartners could count on 95 percent. “Now, if things are just right, we’ll get 85 percent or slightly better. If things are not right, 75 percent.”

Whitehill’s research, Cartner said, is vital. “The crucial part is getting a genetically resistant tree to Phytophthora,” he said.

The Cartners, like other growers, suffered significant damage during Helene’s disastrous late-September path through western North Carolina. Sam Cartner said his farm was fortunate, losing fewer than 3,000 small trees in mudslides; he said the operation will recover and will be able to sell trees in November and December.

In Ashe County, Freeman said his farm escaped major damage. “We’ll have a big Christmas season,” he said, though he added that farmers he knew had suffered widespread damage to equipment and other infrastructure. 

The ‘Cadillac of Christmas Trees’

The Christmas tree growers represent an important slice of the economy in the counties along the state’s border with Virginia and Tennessee. Growers in five counties–Ashe, Alleghany, Avery, Watauga and Jackson–produce the bulk of the trees. According to NCSU, the industry supports 7,000 jobs and generates an estimated $300 million annually in the state, which ranks second to Oregon in annual production and revenue. 

Many of the farms, like the Cartners’, have been in the family for decades, providing a solid cash crop on land that might otherwise get sold and developed. 

Their favored product is the Fraser fir. Often referred to as “the Cadillac of Christmas trees,” it smells better, experts say, sports softer needles, retains them longer, and has a better shape than trees sold in other regions. More than 2 million of the trees are shipped out of North Carolina each year, according to Jeff Owen, a former N.C. State extension agent who helped growers with Christmas tree production and marketing.

It’s not just hometown hype, according to USDA statistics. A 2017 survey, the latest available, showed the Fraser fir accounted for about 35 percent of all Christmas trees sold in the U.S., roughly equal to its two closest competitors–the Noble and Douglas firs–combined. It accounted for the same proportion of revenue from tree sales.

North Carolina accounts for nearly half of all Fraser firs sold in the country, roughly three times as many as any other state. Frasers are also sold widely in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. 

Experts say that statistics on the industry are “soft,” meaning they likely aren’t  measuring all of the activity, and almost certainly understate the size of the North Carolina business. Christmas trees are a relatively minor crop that straddles the agriculture and forestry industries, and they are produced primarily by small family farms that sell on their farms, wholesale to big-box stores and nurseries, and on far-flung retail lots.

Sills, Whitehill’s supervisor on the university faculty, has a doctorate in natural resource and environmental economics. “This is an industry dominated by small, independent, and independent-minded producers in the mountains, and we don’t have great statistics on it,” she said.

The most solid survey comes from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which measures some of the outputs every five years. Those numbers reflect a substantial but slowing business in North Carolina. 

The number of Christmas tree farms: down 31 percent from 2012 to 2022. Acres planted in trees: down 18 percent in the same period. Trees cut: down 25 percent.

But money coming in from those trees has nearly doubled in those 10 years, to roughly $124 million in wholesale sales, according to the USDA.

Growers say that’s because a glut of trees around the time of the 2008 recession led to farmers getting out of the business and sent prices cratering. Too many trees and too few buyers led to a tough several years for the industry. 

In 2012, “I was watching Christmas trees getting cut and burned,” said Travis Birdsell, former extension agent in Ashe County. Growers couldn’t sell them, couldn’t let them grow bigger, and couldn’t replant until they were cut, he said. 

Tim O’Connor, executive director of the National Christmas Tree Association, called that period “a race to the bottom to cut prices and make a sale. It was so unprofitable that people got out of the business.”

Now, tree prices are indeed rising, though growers say their profits aren’t. They’re paying more for labor, for fertilizer, for every aspect of their operations. 

“Perfect seedlings, great site selection, trees that have been there for six years, beautiful, and suddenly one tree will turn orange in two weeks.”

Sam Cartner Jr., Christmas tree farmer

And they’re fighting a harsher, changing climate. Fraser firs grow naturally above 5,000 feet, thriving on cooler temperatures and more natural mist and fog. But few farms in North Carolina approach that altitude; many are in the 3,000- to 4,000-foot range. So, from the start, the growers are waging a battle against nature, one that’s getting more difficult as temperatures climb and regular rain becomes rarer.

Whitehill has heard estimates of 30 percent or more of production being lost to Phytophthora.

Bookwalter, the NCSU extension agent and conifer expert, said she hopes growers will become “more open to diversifying the [tree] portfolio. We should be looking at a variety of species that can deal with heat stress and drought stress.”

But growers say their customers want Fraser firs. And that’s what Whitehill hopes to give them.

A Race Against Time

Tracy Taylor grew up walking the 465 acres of the state’s Upper Mountain Research Station, nestled off state highway 88 among the mountains of Ashe County. His grandfather was the first permanent employee; today, Tracy is the superintendent. 

His work has evolved from traditional farm labor to working with Whitehill to graft the latest, best versions of Fraser firs. Within a year or two, he’ll be harvesting the first seeds from those evolving trees to push through the state’s new seed processing center.

“Twenty years ago,” Taylor said, “I would never have told you I would be doing this.”

It was more than two decades ago, though, that Whitehill’s predecessor, John Frampton, started his work to build a better Fraser fir. This was before Phytophthora was a significant threat; Frampton was seeking to produce trees that would better retain their needles after being cut for market.

“The biggest complaint that consumers have when they buy a Christmas tree is that they’re too messy because the needles fall off,” Whitehill said.

Frampton used seeds from 192 Frasers, representing the genetic diversity of the species, that grow naturally at higher elevations. He planted 30,000 trees at four sites in the North Carolina mountains. For eight years, Whitehill said, Frampton evaluated how fast they grew, how they looked, their form. Eventually, around 2005, he took the tops of those best trees and grafted them to Fraser firs growing in what became a clone bank at the research station. 

He evaluated those trees as they grew, getting down to the best of the best, and eventually selected the 25 best trees. He grafted them into what is now a seed orchard with more than 1,000 copies. Taylor and others will pick cones from those trees, likely in two years, and start processing seeds to get to North Carolina growers.

Those will be the best Fraser firs scientists and farmers now know how to produce. But those trees will not be resistant to Phytophthora. So there’s more work to do.

The second part of this effort, one driven through Whitehill’s new grant, will be to tinker with the seeds using DNA from other firs that are more resistant to root rot. His lab is working with an Asheville company on a plan to produce millions of those seeds for North Carolina growers, dwarfing the number of trees that can be grafted each year by hand.

Those seeds, Whitehill said, “would have the elite Fraser fir genetics on the top” but have roots resistant to Phytophthora. They would look like pure Fraser firs, he said.

It’s a daunting process, one made more uncertain by the length of time it takes researchers and growers to know if they’re on the right track. It’s not like making a change in the seeds of a potato or tomato, with results in months. 

Whitehill understands the difficulty, as well as the stakes. Colleagues say he takes his responsibility seriously, encouraging growers to adapt their methods and accept different blends of trees. 

He has noted to growers that as they have imported more of their seedlings from the Pacific Northwest in recent years, the number of Phytophthora species in the state has grown from one in 2000 to six in 2014 to 11 in 2023. 

“During that time, we’ve changed how we produced seedlings, and we’re importing 80 to 90 percent of our seedlings from outside the state,” he said. “A lot of the diseases that we’re seeing have already been recorded and described in the Pacific Northwest.”

He would prefer the seedlings be produced in the state and be grown out of the ground in trays until they reach 12 to 16 inches in height. A privately run seedling farm near the research station had operated that way, though not producing nearly enough trees to supply the state’s growers.  

But that operation suffered major damage during Helene; more than a quarter-million seedlings that would have been planted next year were wiped out, said Rusty Barr, owner of Barr Evergreens, which runs the seedling farm. 

“The water got so high that it floated my trays,” he said.

So the hurdles are evident: Heat. Drought. Insects. Root rot. After a tour of the state research farm, I ask Whitehill: In 10 years, will North Carolina Christmas tree farmers be producing more, or fewer, Fraser firs?

More, he answers. “What we’re doing,” he said, “is going to help.”

The work, though, will take years, perhaps decades, to provide genetically improved, faster growing, Phytophthora resistant, Fraser firs. 

“Your grandchildren will enjoy them,” Whitehill said on the research farm, “I’m sure when they’re adults.”