A local tree farm is on track to sell as many trees as they sold last year despite the decreased demand for Christmas trees. 

“We sold about 20 trees last Christmas,” said Dan Brown, co-owner of Breezy Tree Farms in Pullman. “This year we’re probably close already to having sold 20 trees.”

Brown said the farm grew fewer trees this year because of abnormally warm weather over the summer. 

“The hotter weather is a contributing factor to the tree growth, and it has lessened tree growth,” Brown said. 

The farm also grew fewer trees because it takes about seven to eight years for a tree to be fully grown, he said. 

Brown said he and his wife, Kelly, acquired the farm’s property last year and have been working on remaking it into it a proper Christmas tree farm. 

“The property used to be a Christmas tree farm,” Brown said. “A lot of the tree shortages happened for us because it wasn’t actually operated and there were fewer Christmas trees on the property.”

Brown said the farm is not greatly affected by national problems causing Christmas tree shortages.

“Our job is not to be a national supplier for Christmas trees,” Brown said. “We haven’t had to deal with the supply chain issues since our trees don’t come from overseas.” 

He said he believes there is a decreased demand for live trees, as fake trees are increasing in quality and popularity.

Trees can grow quite big and outgrow the space given to them, Brown said. 

“At a Christmas tree farm, there can be trees grown every 5 feet, like in a grid,” he said. “Now many of the trees have grown tall and many of them are too close together.”

The farm still has trees available. But they also sell other tree-related products, so they use more of their tree supply. 

“There’s a number of wreaths we’ve made,” Brown said. “There are also some hand-painted wood ornaments and tealight candles made out of wood.”

Hopefully some of the farm’s shortages will be resolved in the future once more of the trees are fully grown and the seeds planted continue to grow, he said.