LANSING -- Area Christmas-tree farms know they're bucking a trend, but they are confident this holiday season will be jolly for their businesses.

While artificial trees seem growingly popular, the farms believe their products will be well received.

To help ensure that that, the Michigan Christmas Tree Association is promoting farms across the state.

Laurie Koelling, director of MCTA and owner of Tannenbaum Farms in Mason, encourages more customers to come out to the farms because real Christmas trees are good for the environment.

She said most of the farms are growing fir trees, which are newer trees. MCTA does promotion to help farmers sell their trees.

Ray Schmidgall is the owner of Star Tree Farm, also located in Mason and is a professor in the School of Hospitality at Michigan State University.

"When customers come to our farms they will be getting fresh trees as opposed to a tree that has been cut a month before," he said.

Schmidgall said the MCTA has been a big help to his farm by helping to promote real Christmas trees.

"Each year we are becoming more profitable as we are selling more trees and this year we hope to sell more trees," he said.

Schmidgall and Koelling both said their farms are selling more trees besides Christmas trees, including selling wreaths.

Tannenbaum Farms and Star Tree Farms will sell a variety of different trees, including blue spruce and scotch pine.

Schmidgall said his farms has the Spartan spruce, which was developed at Michigan State University and is a hybrid between blue and white spruce.

Leah and Dennis Good are the owners of Good's Christmas Trees in Charlotte.

The Goods said MCTA's promotion campaign has been a big help to their farm.

MCTA is helping people to become aware of real trees so they can come out to the farms.

Natural trees are traditional and have a fresh scent. Artificial trees are made from petroleum and plastic.

Good's Christmas Trees will also sell wreaths.

They hope to sell more trees than last year and they have a variety of tree, including all the fir trees, concolor fir, fraser fir, balsam fir, and Douglas fir.

The Goods said the fir trees are the most profitable, especially fraser fir and Douglas fir.

Tannenbaum Farms, Star Tree Farms, and Good's Christmas Trees will be open from Nov. 29 until Christmas. Many Christmas-tree farms throughout the state are part of MCTA.

Customers can find more information about the cut-your-own-tree campaign on their Web site www.mcta.org.

© 2002, Capital News Service, Michigan State University School of Journalism