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Andrew Lee, New Products manager for the Fred C. Gloeckner Company, shows growers how they can easily enhance the beauty of a poinsettia, or totally change its tone, using the company's "Fantasy Colors" product.
By Lana Robinson
Field Editor
If you think poinsettias are strictly for Christmas, think again. Creative growers and retailers are using an ethanol-based dye to turn the traditional yuletide plant into a year-round money-maker. Shades of orange and bronze transform the poinsettia into a fall flower, perfect for Halloween or Thanksgiving festivities. A poinsettia in hues of blue, coupled with red and white flowers, becomes the star of a patriotic arrangement. Sprayed green, it makes the Irish smile on St. Patrick's Day. And tinted in your favorite pastel color, and perhaps with a touch of glitter, the popular potted plant is suitable for weddings or as a centerpiece for anniversaries, birthdays, showers, and other occasions.
The Fred C. Gloeckner Company, Harrison, New York, developed the "Fantasy Colors" products to help broaden the poinsettia's appeal and help growers take it a step beyond the commodity level. Company representatives were on hand to demonstrate the easy process at a special tour at Ellison's Greenhouses in Brenham, Nov. 19, at the conclusion of a poinsettia workshop held that day at Blinn College.
Mark Langerhans, Gloeckner's regional sales representative for Texas and New Mexico, was excited about the response.
"We really stirred the pot down there," said Langerhans. "We did some trials last Christmas, on the East coast. This year, we went nationwide with it. We sent our first product out on November 8. We're trying to open that window up for growers. We think the colors are definitely a way to do that. In our trials last year, we had a grower that black clothed the plants and brought on a crop for Halloween. Using the `Fantasy Colors,' they sold 30,000 poinsettias!"
The dye does not harm the plant, and in trials, sprayed plants cared for side by side with the unsprayed plants thrived. It can also be used to color mums, violets, and other flowering plants.
Langerhans, who stayed over in Brenham for Ellison's annual Open House, Nov. 20 and 21, said customers favored the bright blue poinsettia three to one over the other colors.
Thousands of poinsettias are planted in Texas greenhouses in August. Most are grown from cuttings off stock plants. Poinsettia cuttings are susceptible to the least of plant infections, and they need to be "fed" with a mist every four minutes on extremely hot days right after the newly cut tips of the poinsettias have been planted. They have to be watched carefully, and any leaves that show the least sign of distress or disease must be removed daily because some diseases can ruin a cutting and its nearest neighbors within 48 hours.
Langerhans explained poinsettias, like chrysanthemums, respond to day length. Hence, a grower can enclose the poinsettias in black cloth and manipulate bud set in order to take advantage of holidays other than Christmas.
"In nature, when the days become 12 hours or shorter (typically Sept. 15 in Texas), the poinsettias will set buds, and you'll get a crop seven-and-a-half to eight weeks later. You could actually start the plants the third week of July, start shortening the days in the middle of August, and get a crop for Halloween," he suggested.
At the Nov. 19 workshop, growers enjoyed a sneak preview of traditional and new varieties and production tips, in presentations by Harvey Lang of Fisher USA and Lou Newman, Paul Ecke Ranch. Other speakers covered irrigation, pesticide laws and regulations, and Dr. Carlos Bogran, Extension entomologist, addressed insecticide resistance management. The afternoon panel emphasized the process of growing poinsettias and brain-stormed regarding ways to improve their bottom line.
Like other agricultural commodities, because poinsettias are a staple crop produced by many growers, it tends to be priced competitively, meaning profit margins may not be high. To increase profits, growers must either increase revenues or reduce costs.
Some suggestions for improving profitability that surfaced during the workshop included: more grower cooperation on marketing; assistance from agricultural engineers to develop new automation; and a study of the "elasticity of demand," or the amount a consumer is willing to pay before sales begin to diminish.
Don Wilkerson, a professor and Extension horticulturist at Texas A&M University, pointed out that 80 percent of all the state's greenhouse plants, including poinsettias, were purchased by 20 buyers. When asked how to address that, Jack Weatherford, president of Weather-ford Farms and Greenhouses Inc. in Stafford, said, "Sell to the people who are buying the 20 percent. The 'big box' people, Home Depot and Wal-Mart—we don't sell to them because they don't pay our prices, and they never will. As long as they control the industry, prices will remain depressed for the grower."
Growers weighed the pros and cons of growing standard red poinsettias, for which they always get advance wholesale orders—although the prices may be unimpressive—or risking growing the pink or plum colors, which seem to command better prices at retail, but may or may not be purchased by the wholesale buyers.
Other discussion centered on how poinsettias are, or could be, marketed to various ethnic groups; other flowering plants, such as amaryllis, and their acceptability as a Christmas alternative; the untapped potential of organizational fund-raiser sales; and more emphasis on consumer education to increase willingness to pay for quality and to explain how to care for poinsettias.
According to the U. S. Department of Agriculture, poinsettias are the number one potted plant grown in the United States. Each year, between 40 and 50 million plants are sold. While the standard three- to six- bloom, red poinsettia is the most frequently purchased, there are several other sizes, shapes and colors (natural) available. Colors can range from creamy white through shades of pink and orange to the traditional red. Some poinsettias can be found with marbled bracts of pink and white as well as those with pink flecks on red. Poinsettias can be purchased in miniature sizes and as trees.
In 2003, poinsettias placed second, nationally, behind the orchid, in the flowering pot plant category with $257 million in sales. In 2002, almost 70 producers in Texas sold 3.8 million pots of this most popular holiday flowering plant with a wholesale value of $14.6 million. Texas was third in the United States in terms of wholesale value and sixth based on the number of pots sold, according to the Texas Department of Agriculture.
