The goals of this project are two-fold, says Dr. Joby Czarnecki.
"We named our project 'Making Christmas a Little Greener' because we are trying to help the farmers make more money and then also reduce some of the environmental concerns," she told MPB.
And Dr. Josh Granger says that a good Christmas tree not only grows well, but looks good too. Mississippi is limited on varieties that hit both marks.
"What we're stuck with is some of these are not either very drought tolerant or very flood tolerant," he explained. "The Leland cypress, which is the most economically important tree for Christmas trees, is hindered by a foliar pathogen -- a fungal infection that can cause browning, needle loss, and losses of branches, which of course makes a tree unappealing for Christmas tree use."
That last factor -- aesthetics -- makes the project unique in how they have to approach their work.
"That's something we don't necessarily think about with row crops, is like, does the corn look pretty?" Czarnecki joked.
So, their goal is to study trees at local farms to see what naturally grows best in the region. That means studying soil and water conditions and disease management -- which helps trees grow well and keeps costs down.
"If we can reduce unnecessary fungicide applications and then at the same time find varieties that might do better, we can get that down and help improve their profit margin," Czarnecki said.
That's important because Christmas tree farms are a big part of agri-tourism in Mississippi, she says.
But, because Mississippi's varieties aren't a big part of the tree market overall, there's not much existing research on what works well for southeastern farmers.
"We have a good, strong Christmas tree market, but it's regional: the trees are produced here and they're sold here," Granger explained, pointing to the larger market being further north, where farmers grow different varieties of Christmas trees.
"So a lot of the research is focused on firs and spruces and species of that nature, and they don't really pay a ton of amount of attention to the Leland cypresses because we are a smaller component of that market."
And, Czarnecki adds, farmers already have to compete with the artificial tree market. In Mississippi, these farms aren't often large-scale agricultural operations.
"Because it is typically smaller farms, the profit margins are not large, and this is often a second job for a lot of these people, but that still means they want to make money," Czarnecki said. "And so we'd like to help them find I guess practices that can support their farm income."
Granger and Czarnecki hope the project provides farmers with valuable insights and best practices to help their businesses thrive.
"We're setting these projects up so that they mimic and actually fit into these growers' farms," Granger said. "We don't want to create a system that isn't going to be adopted by the grower."
Czarnecki says they could start growing native trees to study as soon as January.
