Perfection : ®
2 KEEPING TRACK Maybe you don’t want to know every last detail about the very precise measurements and sophisticated techniques that growers use to produce best-quality flowers. But we can give one example with a chart that appears in the Plazoleta greenhouse where statice is grown, showing careful weekly measurements of soil pH (in red) and salts (in green). Constant monitoring of soil quality is one of the things that keep crops of Super Purple and Lady Alba statice thriving at Plazoleta. To meet Perfection standards, these crops must grow more than 30 inches tall and produce long floral spikes. In many varieties of cut flowers, plants lose their vigor over time and must be replaced. With statice, “you get Perfection quality only from the first production of the plant, the first year,” says Pablo. After that, the plant could still produce a stem that would qualify to be graded Select quality—but for the “perfect” stem, it’s ideal to replace the plants with new ones every year, as they do at Plazoleta, in the effort to grow as many Perfection stems as possible. 3 THE KINDEST CUT Getting the “cut point” right means harvesting at the perfect time, when a flower has developed just enough, but not too far, for that variety. This is a critical quality factor for any kind of cut flower. The trend in the industry has been to recognize that flower quality can benefit from leaving flowers on the stem a little longer than has been done in the past. It doesn’t take away from their vase life—it adds to it, because the stem is thicker and stronger, and the flower has had more time to draw the nourishment from the plant. A later cut point, however, also means the flower is more expensive, because it spends more time in the greenhouse (and every day in the greenhouse costs the grower money). More labor and materials are required in packaging to protect the bigger, more developed blooms. And when flowers are bigger and stems are longer, fewer stems can be packed into a box, which means a higher shipping cost. “Perfection snapdragons are harvested when they are a little more mature than regular snapdragons,” confirms Pablo. Likewise, Perfection alstroemeria—like the trendy red variety Romance, seen here—is cut later than most other brands. The result: longer, thicker stems and bigger, brighter blossoms. 18 www.flowersandmagazine.com