Christmas Tree growers warn to pay more for the year

Christmas trees are no different from the fact that inflation is impacting the price of almost everything we buy.

Farmers say you should expect to pay a little more for your tree this year. There aren't enough trees to go around in some cases. Steve Watson, a tree grower at Twin Pines Nursery in Pineola, North Carolina, said that you just have to to because your prices for everything are going up.

The nursery has been around for over 40 years. Watson says a 6 -- 7 foot tree would sell wholesale for about $25 a year. It is between $45 and $55.

Fuel is expensive for the nursery's tractors and chainsaws, and so is fertilizer. Watson says a ton of fertilizer used to be around $180, now it's anywhere from $800 to $1,200.

In August, the Real Christmas Tree Board said that 71% of growers expect wholesale prices to increase five to 15% this year.

Since the 70 s and 80 s we haven't seen this kind of inflation, said Jill Sidebottom, a spokeswoman for the National Christmas Tree Association NCTA Sidebottom, that low supply is a big problem. The 2008 recession hit farmers hard, so fewer trees were planted around that time.

A lot of the farmers were getting older and aging out, so a lot of the small and medium-sized growers went ahead and went out of business, she explained.

It takes 10 to 15 years for a tree to grow, so the effects of 2008 are lingering right now.

It will take a couple of more years before the supply equals demand, Sidebottom said.

Some growers bottom lines are affected by a rise in labor and shipping costs.

Although prices are higher, the NCTA has not seen evidence of a decline in people buying trees.