When people get to Berkey’s Nursery in Spartansburg, they’ll be greeted by a Christmas light display.

It’s up for the Pennsylvania Christmas Tree Growers Association’s summer convention.

About 150 people are expected to come here for the convention that started Thursday.

“Not only from just Pennsylvania, but from surrounding states like New York, New Jersey, [and] Ohio,” Berkey’s owner, Melissa Holby, said. 

They’ll cover all kinds of things, including how to keep trees healthy in less-than-ideal weather, like this year’s.

The dry summer hasn’t been much help.

“This year has been even tougher because we had a very wet spring and we got a ton of rain early,” she said. 

Trees that were planted at Berkey’s about a decade ago are the ones that will be sold this holiday season.

Younger trees are more susceptible to bad weather, so it will be a while before customers see any potential impacts from this year’s weather.

“The weather from this year, you’ll see the damage…two, three, four years down the road,” she said.

They have tools to try to sustain their 900 acres of trees.

“It’s really hard when the trees are 5 or 6 years old, you can’t catch them up,” she said. “It’s not like you can go plant one and [it’ll] be ready at the same time.” 

Keeping this many trees healthy is a science.

That’s why so many growers are coming to Crawford County, so they can learn from each other.

“It doesn’t matter if you’re competitors or not, we all want to put out the best product for our consumers, and we can promote agriculture in Pennsylvania,” she said.