By Mike Louisell
Communications Office
Communications Office
Kids might
not be counting down the days before Christmas yet. But for state export
inspectors, November means Christmas tree season. Frank Curtin and Scott Brooks from WSDA’s
Plant Services Program recently inspected a shipment of trees from Snowshoe
Evergreen in Orting.
Curtin said about 2,800
trees were shipped to Mexico.
“It was pretty cool because
they were using a helicopter to fly the trees to the loading area,” he said. “The
trees were then mechanically shaken for about 20 seconds, a requirement for
export to Mexico. Then trees are stacked, bailed and loaded into trucks.”
Washington
is the fourth largest producer of Christmas trees in the U.S. Many of those trees end up in
Hawaii, California, Canada, Mexico, Asia or military bases worldwide.
Christmas trees bound for
export must be inspected by WSDA. Overseas customers don’t want any dangerous
pests or diseases hitchhiking on our trees. Inspections begin well before the
holidays approach.