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» Go to news mainMedia opportunity: The serious side of Christmas trees: They bring joy to the holiday season, but your festive tree also plays a serious role in sequestering carbon and mitigating greenhouse gas emissions
Christmas trees are a central, joyous feature of most households that celebrate the holiday, but they also play a serious role in sequestering atmospheric carbon even well after they are taken down and disposed of.
Nova Scotia is one of the largest producers of Christmas trees in Canada, with more than 5,000 hectares of land growing millions of trees. Many of those harvested for the holiday are collected after Christmas to be mulched and buried, resulting in a large portion of their carbon stores being retained in sinks rather than in the atmosphere.
The number of trees, biomass and lifecycle of Christmas trees in Nova Scotia could help it reach its greenhouse gas mitigation goals, but by how much?
Little is known about how much carbon is removed from the atmosphere and stored in Christmas trees and orchard soils. A new project led by Dalhousie University researchers, along with the Nova Scotia Community College, the Department of Natural Resources and Renewables, and the Christmas Tree Council of Nova Scotia, is hoping to quantify the carbon stores in balsam fir Christmas tree orchard biomass and soils.
Dr. Mason MacDonald, an assistant professor in Dal's Department of Plant, Food and Environmental Sciences, is available to discuss the research and how the team will eventually look at incorporating technologies to enhance carbon sequestration by Christmas trees.
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Media contact:
Alison Auld
Senior Research Reporter
Dalhousie University
Cell: 1-902-220-0491
Email: alison.auld@dal.ca
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