{"id":11676,"date":"2012-11-29T11:56:46","date_gmt":"2012-11-29T17:56:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/?p=11676"},"modified":"2012-11-29T11:56:46","modified_gmt":"2012-11-29T17:56:46","slug":"why-oklahomas-drought-might-ruin-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/2012\/11\/29\/why-oklahomas-drought-might-ruin-christmas\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Oklahoma\u2019s Drought Might Ruin Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_11677\"  class=\"wp-caption module image right\" style=\"max-width: 300px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/thp365\/6701161063\/sizes\/z\/in\/photostream\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11677\" title=\"Christmas Tree\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2012\/11\/christmastree-300x196.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"196\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-media-credit\">thp365 \/ Flickr<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">\n<\/div><p>The 2011 holiday season was really tough on Oklahoma Christmas tree farmers, but you probably didn\u2019t notice.<\/p><p>Severe drought killed Christmas trees, which meant \u201cno cutting\u201d and \u201cno business\u201d for Oklahoma tree farmers \u2014 at least five of which went out of business, the <em>Journal Record<\/em>\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/journalrecord.com\/2012\/11\/28\/drought-could-pose-threat-to-states-holiday-tree-industry-general-news\/\">Brian Brus reports<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>A second consecutive year of drought could lead to similar outcomes this season.<\/p><\/blockquote><p><!--more-->Customers usually don\u2019t see any shortages because trees are shipped to Oklahoma to meet demand, the paper reports.<\/p><p>And while the holiday tree industry is small \u2014 there are only 35 active members of the Oklahoma Christmas Tree Association, the <em>Journal<\/em> reports \u2014 the losses illustrate an ongoing problem in Oklahoma\u2019s agriculture sector:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8230; weather woes are compounded by the aging problem faced in most family ag operations: The next generation isn\u2019t stepping up to take over from their parents.<\/p><\/blockquote><p>Because it takes about 10 years for a Christmas tree to mature into a sellable product, tree producers face different challenges than farmers who plant and harvest annual crops, the paper reports:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8230; tree farmers are under the same pressure as cattle ranchers or wine producers, struggling to pace production over multiple seasons to keep a steady income flow. A couple of years of missed growth or death can be absorbed by the market, but it can still drive a Christmas tree operation out of business.<\/p><\/blockquote><p>Bah!\u00a0Humbug!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The 2011 holiday season was really tough on Oklahoma Christmas tree farmers, but you probably didn\u2019t notice.Severe drought killed Christmas trees, which meant \u201cno cutting\u201d and \u201cno business\u201d for Oklahoma tree farmers \u2014 at least five of which went out of business, the Journal Record\u2019s Brian Brus reports: A second consecutive year of drought could [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":11677,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15],"tags":[313],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11676"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11676"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11676\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11681,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11676\/revisions\/11681"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}