Seeing the holiday movie “The Polar Express” may or may not help you keep Christmas in your heart. But taking your ticket stub to a participating Christmas tree farm is certain to keep an extra $3 in your pocket.

About 20 of Iowa’s 100 active Christmas tree farms are participating in the national cross-promotional marketing offer, which provides a $3 discount on trees selling for $25 or more. The biggest determining factor for Iowa’s tree growers’ profits, though, may simply be the weather, said Jan Pacovsky, a New Hampton grower and executive director of the Iowa Christmas Tree Growers Association.

“I think the past few years we’ve had some pretty good years because the weather has been in our favor, and people come out to the fields and have a family get-together,” said Pacovsky, who operates a 15-acre choose-and-cut operation.

An estimated 24.5 million Americans intend to buy a real Christmas tree this year, according to a nationwide poll conducted by Wirthlin Worldwide/Harris Interactive for the National Christmas Tree Association.

“If consumers follow through on these intentions, it will be second straight year of increased purchases,” said Irwin Loiterstein, chairman of the NCTA’s market expansion task force. The industry has been in a slump for the past several years, as harried consumers have opted for the convenience of artificial trees, or no tree at all. Sales, which often topped 37 million trees in the 1990s, fell to a low of 22.2 million in 2002 before inching up to 23.4 million last year.

Though no formal statewide records are kept, the trend in Iowa also appears to be fewer growers and fewer people buying live trees, said Paul Wray, an Iowa State University Extension forester.

“I think part of it is that people are busier, and the competition for live trees has gotten better,” Wray said. “And some people don’t want to have the mess of live trees. But then there are people who like the idea that they’re renewable. So it goes both ways.”

In Iowa, Pacovsky said, the growers association has urged its members to provide customers with information about how to properly care for the tree to ensure they’ll have a good experience and return next year.

In 2002, Iowa ranked 26th in the nation in Christmas tree production, with 57,254 Iowa-grown trees sold, according to NCTA data. The top-producing state, Oregon, sold approximately 6.5 million trees.

Because it takes five to seven years for new producers to grow trees large enough to sell, only about 100 of the 200 or so Iowa growers are currently selling their stock, Wray said. The majority are small operators on one to 10 acres seeking supplemental income.

“Probably the reason for that is it’s a practice that can be put on small tracts of land,” he said. “It’s very labor intensive by nature – an individual by himself cannot handle 40 or 50 acres of Christmas trees, typically.”

Rick Larson, a Des Moines architect, has another five years to wait for the trees he and his wife have planted on their acreage in Decatur City to grow big enough to sell.

“We’re learning as we go,” said Larson, who has a quarter acre planted and 1,800 potted trees in his nursery awaiting planting. “We’re not making a huge investment to lose it; we’re doing it on a small scale and building it up.” After losing a lot of trees to drought in 2003, he switched from bare-root to potted nursery stock, and is also experimenting with more drought-resistant varieties, such as Meyers spruce.

Though many of the 33 Central Iowa tree farms listed on the Iowa Christmas Tree Association Web site are located out in the country, some are located relatively close-in.

Metz Metcalf, a Des Moines financial planner who works out of his home, sells about 100 trees a year from four acres behind his house on Southwest 56th Street, which is about a mile west of Des Moines International Airport.

The people we (sell to) are fun, interesting, intelligent and happy people,” he said. “Our theory,” he added tongue-in-cheek, “is that all the grumpy people are home with their artificial trees.”

Metcalf said he and his wife initially got into tree sales to provide extra income to help pay for their son’s college education, but it ended up paying just a portion after he chose “a very expensive college.”

“We try to do it without hiring anyone,” he said. “It’s a fun activity.”

Just north of Indianola, Doc’s Christmas Trees has managed to increase its sales by at least 10 percent for each of the past 10 years, said owner Keith Eubank, an Indianola veterinarian who planted his first trees in 1987.

“I had purchased land that wasn’t suitable for anything else at this point,” he said. “I was raised on a farm and I thought it would be a good use of the land and a good project.”

After his best Thanksgiving weekend yet, Eubank said he hopes to sell 300 trees this season. Much of his business relies on referrals and the quality of experience he can provide, he said.

“We try to make it a pleasant atmosphere for the families,” he said. “Most of them come out year after year. We try to make it as much as possible a family affair, where they can come out in hopefully decent weather and pick a nice tree.”

For a list of Iowa growers and those that are offering the “Polar Express” discount, visit www.realchristmastrees.org and click on the find trees button.