Regional Roundup: Growers impressions of 2016
From Otago.
While undoubtedly the main thing currently happening in Otago is the Peony harvest, John Van Delft from Mosgiel looks at the state of the local market in Dunedin and southern regions.
“Supermarkets are selling bunches of flowers using 2nd quality stock, some of it is already past it when offered for sale. Florists are not stocking a full range of roses with particular colours not being available in one area at all.
It seems that florists are reluctant to carry a full range of stock for fear of losses, wholesalers do not wish to take the risk either. As a grower I am being asked to supply smaller quantities more often at short notice. This is making our situation more difficult at a time of static prices, the situation for many years now. Are the public who buy the poor quality flowers (albeit at a lower price) reluctant to purchase again for fear of wasting their money? How or can we address this problem?
As I am currently on a short break in NSW, I have noticed that the quality of flowers being offered here is generally very poor, but high street prices are even lower i.e. $10 for a wrapped bunch of 10 roses.
Should we be thinking of promoting a "Quality Guarantee"? In conjunction with "Fresh NZ grown"? My wife tells me some major supermarkets in the UK offer a 5 day guarantee.
We treat our roses with Liquid Seal - this comes at a cost. So far we have not had a noticeable improvement in the prices received.
John Van Delft”
From Canterbury.
In Canterbury Ian Kempthorne of K&L Nurseries gives a good review of how he sees Canterbury conditions.
“The spring has had a lot of growth due to a bit of rain fall , actually we had more rain in spring than back in July!
Our Gerbera crop is finished its spring replant and waiting to get the new colours before Xmas.
Wedding demand has only just picked up in the last couple of weeks which has meant for some soft market top prices. School holiday sales were very weak and throw another earthquake in the mix and sales have dropped in some areas we send to and logistics have had a big shake up! It’s a long way around to go north by truck.
Rose prices have been a bit weak in recent months and I think it can be put down to a couple of things. Too many Columbian roses coming in when NZ volume has come up and secondly not a lot of demand for wedding colours early on. I have been told that weddings in Fiji etc are getting pushed and have the complete package but it means everything is going off shore!
White wash was needed on the roofs early this year as the sun has been intense when we see it.
I think with the growing conditions this year things may come a little early for Xmas.
NZ Flower week is underway so I hope everyone has some good sales!
Regards Ian “
From Nelson.
Richard Mangin of ‘Greensquare’ is currently busy with outdoor production most of which is for export markets
“As an outdoor grower we have been struggling with the number of rain days we have been getting this spring, as yet we have not needed to start irrigating our outdoor crops.
We have learned not to complain about rain as it inevitably means that we will be hoping for rain in a few weeks time (the downside of growing on stones)
Instead we look to the positives of so much rain, and that is the outstanding growth we are getting.
We all got woken a couple of nights ago with the earthquake. Thankfully we had no damage. The peony growers did have their transport arrangements shaken up, with the Ferry disruption. Short but sweet from the top of the South.
Regards, Richard”
From the Bay of Plenty
Vania Riddington provides a full account of the activities of the newly formed ‘Outdoor Flower & Foliage Growers Association’.
OFFGA Update
“Outdoor Flower and Foliage Growers Association (formerly the NZ Protea & Foliage Growers Association)
After an extremely wet winter growers in the BOP/Waikato region may have felt like they were about to experience a repeat of last summer’s wettest drought in history. Fortunately the rain held off for OFFGA’s three spring gatherings.
A number of our members are new to flower growing and have recently taken over existing properties. The support our group provides has been greatly appreciated and we have tailored our recent field trips and workshops to help these newer growers. In September and November we ran two pre-season workshops, one for Viburnum opulus and the other for Hydrangeas. These gatherings help to standardise quality systems amongst growers and also to share innovative ways of doing things. We also held a field trip where we visited three of the new growers based in Tauranga. Between the three properties over 10 different flower and foliage crops were grown so it was great to see such diversity.
Our AGM in August saw a name change voted in and a new president elected. The main reason for the name change was the consensus that ‘NZPFGA’ did not accurately represent our membership base as few actually grow Protea and most grow Hydrangea or other flower crops. A number of Hydrangea growers have since joined OFFGA as it provides networking opportunities and a level of cohesion.
Prior to the AGM we had a presentation on Occupational Health & Safety. It’s a minefield which few of us had made the effort to negotiate but it is clearly an important area to get to grips with. We decided that as a group we would put together a generic manual for our members to tailor to their own properties and follow up with regular reviews to keep everyone focused and accountable.
In November we launched a new website for the group offga.co.nz. We see this as a platform to share information amongst members as well as to provide a point of contact for anyone looking to take up flower growing in NZ.
We will be finishing the year with our annual games day - a chance to relax & unwind away from the flowers.
Kind Regards
Vania Riddington”
From West Auckland.
A discussion with Joanne Hurley, CEO of Van Lier’s at Kumeu reveals much about the success of this third generation family of rose growers and now, other flowers.
Production for the year to date is pretty much the same as last year.
Effort is put into keeping the Van Lier rose varieties up to date with a consequence that they receive good feedback on their varieties and demand is consistent and high. Interestingly their most popular rose is an orange one by ‘Dumen’ of the Netherlands, which is actually an older variety revived – Carpe Diem.
While roses are still 90% of their sales, they also have a range of other flowers – Gypsophila, Alstroemeria, Carnations and the recently added Hellebore ‘Magnificent Bell’ which is proving very popular .The added range is particularly beneficial as a marketing feature for their direct sales.
Van Lier’s exclusive rights to ‘David Austen’ roses has been a particular success and Joanne considers that it underscores the need for a point of difference with rose sales.
Joanne explained their post harvest system which consists of 3 coolrooms. One coolroom at 4’C holds the freshly harvested product. The next coolroom at 15’C has the flower grading machine it in and the complete flower processing is done in that space at constant 15’C. The third room is again at 4’C and is where the processed flowers are sorted for orders and auction sales. To my mind this is post harvest cool chain management at its best and shows up the Van Lier dedication to quality.
During ‘NZ Flowers Week’ Van Lier had a public open day at their Kumeu nursery. Joanne emphasized how all the visitors were impressed and had a strong desire to support and buy NZ grown flowers. The question raised all the time was – “how can I tell which flowers are NZ grown and which are imported”. Currently the only answer is for the customer to ask the retailer, something which I suspect only a minority of flower buyers would do. If we could get all NZ flowers clearly branded as such I feel the industry would thrive.
Chris Smellie
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