Shortage looms for Denmark's best-selling Christmas trees

Prized Danish Christmas trees are a lucrative worldwide export each December but a shortage means the Rolls Royce of evergreens will adorn fewer homes this year and nurseries will be seeing smaller profits.
The Nordmann tree, a 10-year labour of love for producers who groom this classic, is revered for its elegant symmetry, its dense, emerald green branches and its soft, long-lasting needles.

However, in Denmark, the world's biggest exporter of Nordmanns, the head of the association of Christmas tree growers Kaj Oestergaard warned that there would be some "300,000 to 400,000 fewer Nordmann trees in 2007," leading to prices 10 to 25 percent higher than normal.

A total of about nine or 10 million firs are due to be exported from the Scandinavian nation to 25 countries this December for a total of 1.3 billion kroner (174 million euros, 255.7 million dollars), primarily to Germany, Britain and France.

Count Johan Scheel, a Nordmann producer and owner of the 12th-century Ryegaard Gods estate, said for the first time in decades, he would "not be exporting a single Nordmann."

"There's a shortage because there are very few trees this year," he said, sporting a jaunty red elf's cap as he welcomed families searching for the perfect Christmas tree on the grounds' vast nursery, some 50 kilometers (31 miles) west of Copenhagen.

Previously, Scheel used to sell his "entire annual production of around 10,000 Christmas trees" to foreign countries.

"Not just anyone can grow a Nordmann," said Scheel as he strolled among the rows of dark green conifers. The seeds come from the Caucasus but he contended, "It's the Danish climate and know-how that make the difference."

"It's neither too cold nor too warm in Denmark, which provides the perfect conditions to cultivate this fir."

A Nordmann, he added, also requires a "lot of work and the seedlings need to be checked on regularly over the course of 10 years until they are mature and ready for sale," to stave off fungi, weeds and even birds that can destroy a tree's delicate symmetry by sitting on a central branch.

"Despite our controls, 20% of Christmas trees are binned because they are crooked and therefore unsalable" to fastidious importers.

Scheel said this year's shortage was due to the crisis years in 1998-2004, "when there was an over-production in Europe, particularly in Denmark, which led to a price war that bled the industry" and forced many growers out of business.
"It was rough, and we sold Nordmanns at a loss, for 60 kroner (eight euros, 12 dollars) a tree when the minimum to make a profit is 100 kroner," he said.

Scheel, like many other growers, was cautious afterwards and planted fewer such trees.

"Since it takes around 10 years for a Christmas tree to grow, it's easy to understand that there is a shortage of Nordmanns today and a rise in prices," he said.

According to Oestergaard, buyers, notably those from Europe, "haven't hesitated to raise their sale prices for Nordmanns by 10 to 25 percent."

In Denmark this year, a typical two-metre (six-foot, six-inch) Nordmann that will become the focus of holiday cheer in many a living room costs 370 kroner (50 euros, 74 dollars), and much more for the bigger trees. However, the price doesn't seem to have scared off Danes, who were flocking to Schell's estate where a giant Christmas tree lit up the entrance and little wooden huts offered traditional decorations to be hung on the firs.

In a corner, organic Christmas trees were commanding even higher prices 500 to 600 kroner (98 to 118 dollars, 67 to 80 euros).

"Those aren't mine. I tried to grow organic trees. But the result was disappointing," said Scheel.

"There was little interest abroad and no one was interested in paying more."

Source: AFP

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