Hawaii’s largest shipment of Christmas trees arrived this weekend. Department of Agriculture inspectors surveyed the trees early this morning for unwanted pests.

Trees from Oregon and Washington State made their way oversees in time for the Christmas tree rush.

100 Matson containers filled with 300-500 Christmas Trees each arrived in the past 48 hours.

“This is the largest shipment that we have brought in, a pretty large shipment came in last week Sunday and a very small shipment came in the week before,” says Vice President of Matson Sales Gary Nakamatsu.

Matson representatives say they are the primary shipper of the trees brought to Hawaii.

The Department of Agriculture inspects the trees for invasive species...like yellow jacket wasps.

"For every container that comes in with Christmas trees we open the container check a Phytosanitary Certificate which is issued by the government, state government of origin,” says Department of Agriculture entomologist Darcy Oishi.

A Phytosanitary Certificate says the trees should be free of pests. Department of Agriculture inspectors randomly search the trees for worms, spiders, beetles and other things that could potentially have harmful effects.

“We are also looking for trees that are grown when Sudden Oak Death areas SOD is a disease that the federal government and the state are looking out for,” says Oishi.

Agriculture inspectors do what they can to keep Sudden Oak Death away.

“Potentially, it can affect some of our native plants so it causes a burn so we don't want, we want to prevent that from coming to Hawaii,” says Oishi.

“Anything that will pose significant risk to people our way of life and our environment,” continues Oishi.

After inspection the trees make their way to the neighbor islands.

“We'd say 25-30% of the total of trees will be destined to some neighbor island customers,” says Oishi.

Of the trees inspected one container did not have a Phytosanitary Certificate. The container will be held until each tree is inspected one by one.