Joy of Christmas

A research project at the Nova Scotia Agricultural College in Truro, N.S., hopes to reverse the move to artificial trees with balsam firs that hold their needles.

The balsam fir is lush, full and fragrant, which makes it a popular choice for Christmas and a mainstay of Nova Scotia’s $30-million-a-year Christmas tree industry.

Industry officials say one of the main reasons cited by customers for their switch to artificial trees is needle loss.

Mason MacDonald hopes to turn that around with a doctoral research project he is conducting with the Atlantic Canada Christmas Tree Research Initiative to understand why Christmas trees lose their needles.

Mr. MacDonald said most people just assume that a Christmas tree sheds its needles because it is dry, but that is not the case.

He said they are studying the way the trees age and the way they shed in hopes of creating a Christmas tree that holds on to its needles.