NEW YORK — The gifts are unwrapped. The children’s shrieks of delight are just a memory. Now it’s time for another Yuletide tradition: cleaning up the needles that fall off your Christmas tree.
Consumers consistently cite messiness as one of the most common reasons they don’t have a real tree, says the National Christmas Tree Association.
Keeping a tree well-watered goes a long way toward minimizing the needle problem. Beyond that, scientists are trying to find ways to make the trees less messy.
At a research station in Puyallup, Wash., Gary Chastagner of Washington State University works to identify trees that hold onto their needles best. With a federal grant, Chastagner is also working with others to identify genetic markers that indicate whether a tree will resist needle shedding. That would make the tree-screening process much faster and perhaps lead to breeding experiments to produce superior trees.
