TROY — Fulton Farms in Troy will take a year off from selling Christmas trees this season, due to increased sales last year that left only a limited supply of trees ready for harvest.

“We’ll be back, we just need some growth time,” Fulton Farms Market Manager Beverly Fulton said. “We have to take a year off for them to grow.”

“Over the years, our demand has well exceeded our supply,” Jim Fulton said. “We’re really extremely low on inventory right now.”

“We’re hoping to open back up again next year and have a reasonable supply,” he said.

Fulton Farms, located on state Route 202, usually sells approximately 1,200-1,300 trees each year.

“We might have 700 that are marketable this year,” Jim Fulton said. “If we did open, it would probably just mean we’d have to shut down for two years the following year.”

“The nature of Christmas trees is, you can’t just buy more for the next year,” he said. “It takes seven or eight years to get a tree, from the time you plant it to the time that its marketable.”

The popularity of live Christmas trees has grown recently, and other growers are also experiencing shortages this year.

“I think there are several farms that are experiencing the same thing,” Beverly Fulton said.

Fulton Farms has been growing Christmas trees for more than 35 years, and the farm grows several different types of trees including spruce, white pine and Korean fir.

“We’ve kind of experimented with a few other trees,” Fulton said. “The ones we’ve had the most success with are Canaan Fir; they come from the Canaan Valley in West Virginia.”

Christmas trees will be available at Fulton Farms next year. The Fulton Farms Market will open as usual in April.

“We’re hoping to open back up again next year and have a reasonable supply,” Fulton said.

“They just need another year of growing,” he said. “They should be better next year.”