editor’s report

Making a Point About Poinsettias

Tim Hodson, Editorial Director (847) 391-1019 • [email protected] id you grow poinsettias in 2008? provide you with some of the information How did they sell this year? you might need to make the right decisions How did your 2008 poinsettia in 2009. season differ from other years? Did any variety perform better The National Poinsettia Trials Dthan the others in the greenhouse? At retail? To help you make educated poinsettia Why? What kind of feedback did you get decisions, this issue features the new vari- from your customers? Did the state of the eties that were trialed this past fall in the economy impact your poinsettia decision- National Poinsettia Trials at North Carolina making process? State University, Purdue University and the That’s a lot of questions to ask, but now is University of Florida. This year, breeders the time to be asking them. As I write this introduced 25 new cultivars in the trials. in mid-January, Christmas 2008 is barely a These cultivars are expected to be available memory for many, but breeders, researchers to growers in 2009. and growers are already starting to think In the “New Releases for 2009” article about Christmas 2009 — and that means (page 20), Drs. Jim Barrett, John Dole and many of them are already starting to make Roberto Lopez report on how the different their poinsettia decisions. varieties performed in their greenhouses in With 2008’s production and sales figures their different regions of the country. still fresh in your mind, this issue of GPN Next month, we will present the results contains results from the 2008 National of the consumer preference surveys that Poinsettia Trials. Hopefully, this article will were done at the three universities as well as Homewood Nursery in Raleigh, N.C. Nearly 1,500 consumers participated this year and Did You Know… selected their favorite poinsettia cultivars. Currently, there are more than 100 different poinsettia varieties on the market. The March issue will give you some insight Many growers have a love-hate relationship with these varieties, but here are some fun to what the consumers liked and didn’t like so you can make some informed decisions facts and fi gures about one of the industry’s biggest crops. this year. Did you know that poinsettias… • Have their own day? It is Dec. 12, the day that Dr. Joel Roberts Poinsett died in 1851. In the Zone Poinsett is generally credited with introducing America to poinsettias. You can always fi nd additional informa- • Make up 85 percent of all of the potted plants sold during the holiday season? tion about the different cultivars, growing • Have their own college football bowl game? The former Holiday Bowl was tips and trials results from years past in the Poinsettia Zone on our website, www. rechristened the Poinsettia Bowl in 2005 and is played every December in San Diego’s gpnmag.com. QualComm Stadium. Also, don’t forget to check out the latest edi- • Are grown commercially in all 50 state and that California is the No. 1 state for producing tion of Hort TV on www.gpnmag.com! GPN poinsettias? • Make up 85 percent of all of the potted plants sold during the holiday season?

8 GPN February 2009 www.gpnmag.com