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Media Highlight: Dal researcher explains how science can produce a longer lasting Christmas tree

Posted by Communications and Marketing on December 21, 2016 in Media Highlights

Of the American households that put up a tree, more than 80 percent put up a fake one, about double the number from 25 years ago, according to Gallup. What’s worse—if you’re a Christmas tree farmer, that is—is that fake trees easily last a decade or more, so for each one purchased today, that’s 10 or more real trees that won’t be sold in the years to come.

A group of Christmas tree farmers in Canada is fighting back, however, staking their hopes on a new and improved variety of balsam fir developed at the Christmas Tree Research Center in Bible Hill, Nova Scotia. And this Christmas, plant scientists at this Dalhousie University institution—the only such facility in the world—are unveiling the fruits of their labor: the SMART Balsam.

Read full story (http://modernfarmer.com/2016/12/smart-christmas-tree/