Christmas tree drama: Why many states want to get rid of the eastern redcedar

The holiday season is evergreen trees’ time to shine. But one tree — the eastern redcedar — has come to be considered a nuisance as it spreads across the Great Plains.
Back when Kelly Roberts was a kid during the 1970s, her family would scout their northeastern Oklahoma pasture every year, looking for the perfect eastern redcedar for their Christmas tree.

“I remember traipsing across the pasture and there were very few,” Roberts said. “So we would have to walk a while before we would find one and then rule it out or rule it in.”

Fifty years later, it’s a different story.

Eastern redcedars have crept across the Great Plains, carpeting what used to be grassland from the Texas, up through Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska.

In some places, the redcedars have been welcomed. People plant them as windbreaks or snow fences, partly because they grow so readily and require little care. But the resilience that makes them useful can also cause problems.

Roberts especially worries about how much water the trees use.