Drought killing Midwest Christmas trees - Fox 2 News Headlines

Across the Midwest farmers are fighting for their future as the drought continues to kill many newly-planted Christmas trees and that could ultimately impact crop size and prices several years from now.

Mel Koelling has been growing Christmas trees for 35 years in the Mason area of Michigan. He tells WILX-TV that so far this summer he's lost about 4,000 trees and since his Tannebaum Farm plants about 10,000 Christmas trees each year, that's about half their new crop.

Koelling says because mature trees are more drought resistant,  the trees that will be chopped down this year remain relatively unaffected. However, it's the younger trees that have been virtually wiped out.

It takes about 7 to 10 years to grow most standard-sized Christmas trees, so Koelling says he'll try to make up for his losses by doubling his nursery order for next spring. Koelling says if the farm has another dry few weeks, it will mean even more losses.

Similar problems have been reported in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Illinois.

Jim Keller of the Cupola House Tree Farm in Bourbonnais, Ill has lost 90 percent of the seedlings he's planted. That used to be the percentage he would normally keep.

Keller tells FOX News, thanks to the drought, it's the next 5 to 10 years he is worried about but he remains optimistic.

"There might be some of the trees might be a little shorter, not as full , things like that. But, realistically if I do my job there's going to be just as many trees 5 to 10 years from now as there are now," Keller added.