Britain is set for a Christmas tree shortage after its hottest ever summer. Tree growers across the country said high temperatures, dry weather and drought meant many newly planted trees did not survive their first year. It has prompted concern about the health of this year’s harvest and a tree shortage in years to come. Trees usually grow for around eight years before being cut. Oliver Combe, 57, who has worked at York Christmas Trees for 40 years, said it had been a “tough year” for growers .
“For the first time ever we have had losses in what we planted last year,” he told The Telegraph. The tree farmer, who was last month chosen to supply the tree for No 10, said he had switched to autumn planting to enable strong root growth before inevitable summer droughts. However, this year the hot, dry summer resulted in the loss of around 2,000 of his 15,000 newly planted trees. “This year, we have had no proper rain since Easter,” he said.
The lack of rainfall also meant fertiliser was not easily absorbed by the older trees, which could impact their growth and future harvests. Mr Combe is now looking to irrigate his crops after successive dry summers, having previously opted not to in favour of trees growing deeper roots to find moisture themselves. Explaining that he had identified two ponds on his farm that could act as a water supply, he said: “We will look at irrigation now.
“We’ve got two ponds and hope they will hold enough water for when we need them.”
The Telegraph reports that Britain's hottest ever summer and drought killed young Christmas trees and threaten future supply. It treats the heat and the drought, which a grower calls "inevitable", as plain bad weather and never says that warming makes such extremes more frequent and more severe. Nothing else in the report misleads.
NewsCord staff selected this article for review and pointed the model at passages to examine. Every finding quotes the article.
Leaves out the climate link
Serious
“after its hottest ever summer”
Why this matters
The words "after its hottest ever summer" give a record heat event as the cause of the shortage and stop there.
The impression it gives
A reader takes the record summer as a one-off piece of bad luck for growers.
The context
Human-caused warming has made hot extremes and drought more frequent and more severe. The article never uses the words climate or warming anywhere.
How we know
On the recordThat warming has made hot extremes, heavy rainfall, agricultural and ecological drought, fire weather and intense tropical cyclones more frequent or more severe.ipcc.ch (opens in a new tab)
Checked against the whole articleIt never uses the words “climate” and “warming”.
The Telegraph reports the grower calling summer droughts "inevitable" and gives no reason why droughts have become a yearly expectation.
The impression it gives
A reader comes away thinking drought is simply a fixed feature of British summers that farmers must accept.
The context
Warming caused by burning fossil fuels is what makes agricultural drought more frequent, and cutting emissions limits how much worse it gets. The article says nothing of this.
How we know
On the recordThat warming has made hot extremes, heavy rainfall, agricultural and ecological drought, fire weather and intense tropical cyclones more frequent or more severe.ipcc.ch (opens in a new tab)
On the recordCutting greenhouse gas emissions is what limits further warming, and every increment of warming avoided reduces harm.ipcc.ch (opens in a new tab)
The phrase "successive dry summers" records a run of hot, dry years and leaves the pattern unexplained.
The impression it gives
A reader sees a string of bad summers with no cause behind them.
The context
A run of hotter, drier summers is what human-caused warming produces. Other coverage of the same story notes growers' fears for the "long-term viability of cultivation in England following several scorching summers".
How we know
On the recordIt is unequivocal that human influence, chiefly the burning of fossil fuels, has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land.ipcc.ch (opens in a new tab)
Britain is set for a Christmas tree shortage after its hottest ever summer and a drought that killed many newly planted trees. Climate change is making heatwaves and droughts like this more frequent and more severe.