Tree prices will likely be higher

MIFFLINBURG, Pa. (AP) — Christmas tree shoppers should expect to pay more this season because of rising freight and fuel costs, according to the manager of a Christmas tree auction that bills itself as the country’s largest.

Nearly 40,000 trees were sold Tuesday at the Buffalo Valley Produce Auction in Mifflinburg. Auction manager Neil A. Courtney said prices were about 10 percent higher than last year.

“The freight and fuel issue is the problem,” he said Friday. “I hate to keep drumming that, but that’s what it is.”

The extended dry fall season also is expected to result in more shedding of needles, he said.

About 200 bidders, most of them buying trees in lots for retailers in the Northeast, attended the auction. The sale has grown in size from about 6,000 trees six years ago.

Courtney said the most commonly available grade of Douglas fir auctioned for about $17 and should retail in metropolitan areas for $40-$45. A six- or seven-foot-high Fraser fir of the most common grade sold at auction for $20-$24 and will probably retail in urban areas for $45-$65, he said.

Most of the trees Courtney auctioned off were harvested from within 300 miles of the auction site in central Pennsylvania, with some Fraser firs originating in North Carolina. The trees ranged from tabletop sizes to 18-footers than can retail for a few hundred dollars.

The Missouri-based National Christmas Tree Association said Americans purchased nearly 29 million Christmas trees last year, down from about 33 million in 2005. Pennsylvania leads the nation in Christmas tree farms with nearly 2,200.