Christmas Tree Time & Bird Flu Discovered

Christmas Tree Time & Bird Flu Discovered. I'm Greg Martin with today's Northwest Report.

Time to pick your Christmas tree and according to Bryan Ostlund, Executive Director for the Pacific Northwest Christmas Tree Association there should be a great selection to choose from.

OSTLUND: The week leading up to Thanksgiving, things generally are at the top of the bell curve about November 15th and it continues just to be full speed ahead through this Thanksgiving weekend. We've shifted from an over-supply to, I hate to use such a term as right-supply a made u[ term but that's really where we're at. It's interesting that it's much more sensitive than you'd think and getting too far off that intersection of supply and demand.

Ostlund says that there should be plenty of trees to choose from and while prices will be a bit higher this year they're no where near what they were in the early 2000's.

We haven't heard the last of avian influenza this year. A wild mallard duck that was shot in British Columbia back on November 10th has tested positive for the virus although not the same strain and the one that decimated many bird operations here in the northwest earlier in the year. It does raise some concern for poultry producers although due to this years outbreak many producers have already stepped up their biosecurity. The bird was tested as part of a provincial avian influenza surveillance program.

That's today's Northwest Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network of the West.