Source:
Jim Barrett jbarrett@ifas.ufl.edu, 352-392-1831 ext. 234
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Think you’re having a stressful holiday season? Just be glad you aren’t a pretty red flower in a greenhouse on the University of Florida campus – where poinsettias are currently on trial.
This week, UF’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences is hosting its eighth annual round of poinsettia trials, an event that brings UF experts and local residents together to pass judgment on dozens of new varieties of the flower. Just one of three such events held in the United States each year, the UF poinsettia trials are crucial in determining which flowers will make it to the store shelves next year.
“Our consumers here in Gainesville are going to affect consumers all over the country, and, to a certain extent, over the whole world,” said UF horticulturist Jim Barrett, who coordinates the trials. “People can walk in off the street and tell an entire industry what to do.”
Every holiday season, the world’s five largest poinsettia breeders send their newest varieties to greenhouses at UF, North Carolina State University and Purdue University, where horticulture experts judge each plant in categories ranging from a variety’s overall appearance to its ability to stay healthy during shipping. Then the judges open the greenhouse doors to the public, allowing local residents to rate the varieties and purchase some of the plants on display.
Consumer input from the trials has triggered an explosion of new poinsettia varieties. In addition to the traditional red and white varieties, visitors will find poinsettias with bracts in novelty colors, such as purple or orange. (Bracts are the brightly-colored leaves around the poinsettia flower that give the plant its distinctive appearance.) Visitors will also find plants with bracts in novelty shapes – plants that appear to be sprouting pinwheels or rosebuds.
“Because of what our consumers do here, there’s now more diversity in poinsettias than ever,” Barrett said. “If we had done these trials 10 years ago, you wouldn’t see half as many varieties on trial.”
New varieties also tend to sport names as colorful as their foliage. This year’s trials include dozens of varieties with holiday names such as Santa Claus White, Christmas Cookie and Cranberry Punch. Wine-related names such as Merlot and Chianti are also popular, as are art-inspired monikers such as Da Vinci, Avant Garde and Monet Twilight.
Poinsettia producers have good reason to labor over their plant names: the consumers in the trials can be as tough, and as capricious, as the judges on “American Idol.” Because the plants can’t be grown in much of the United States and are difficult to grow even in the relatively friendly climate of Florida, they haven’t caught on with large numbers of gardeners, Barrett said. That means most of the consumers at the trial will pick a plant based on first impressions.
“They’re thinking about what the plant looks like and whether it will fit in with their Christmas decorations,” Barrett said. “For the most part, they don’t know anything about the hardiness of the plant or any other characteristics. For most people, this is a plant you buy once a year and throw away after Christmas.”
To many consumers, in fact, the choice of a poinsettia is a simple matter of red or white. The vast majority of poinsettia sales are done through retail chains, which tend to stock only a few hardy varieties.
But more specialized varieties are prized by nursery owners, as well as the charity organizations that sell poinsettias for Christmas fundraisers, Barrett said. Both nurseries and charities need to offer their customers something not available at chain stores, he said.
The consumers at the UF trials may not be poinsettia experts, but they have given growers a valuable glimpse into the minds of their customers. An example, Barrett said, is Plum Pudding, a poinsettia with plum-colored bracts. Because it is difficult to grow, poinsettia producers were reluctant to adopt the plant after its introduction a few years ago. But consumers gave it a high rating, and were willing to pay more than the usual $7.50 per plant to take one home. The consumer response changed growers’ minds about the plant, Barrett said.
“The color purple has been used more and more often in Christmas decorations in recent years, and I think that’s what is driving demand for this variety,” Barrett said.
Other matters of consumer taste can be a little more difficult to explain. For instance, Barrett said, consumers in Europe seem to want their red poinsettias to have a bright, orange-red hue, while American consumers tend to prefer darker, more bluish reds. Barrett can’t account for the difference in taste, except to note that the red poinsettia varieties stocked in American chain stores tend to be on the bluish side – possibly affecting consumers’ opinions of what a healthy plant should look like.
The trials are being held in the greenhouse complex behind Fifield Hall on the UF campus. They will be open to the public from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 11, and signs directing visitors to the greenhouse complex will be posted along Hull Road. Barrett said the event usually draws between 350 and 400 people.
“We see a lot of retired people, a lot of students and quite a few couples,” he said. “We also have a lot of people who come year after year. It’s becoming a Christmas tradition.”
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