May 7, 2024 • 45 mins
Spring has sprung in the world of horticulture, and as Mother's Day nears, we welcome Dr. John Dole, a Professor of Horticultural Science from North Carolina State University. His current research activities focus on cut flowers, including new cultivar evaluations, production, postharvest, and marketing analysis. Dr. Dole opens our eyes to the science of cut flower production, the crucial post-harvest practices, and the flower's voyage from farm to tabletop. With his expertise, you'll harvest a bouquet of knowledge on how to keep those purchased petals perky for longer, and you'll catch a glimpse into the science that ensures these flowers keep their sparkle from field to vase. You're sure to leave this episode with a fresh perspective on the cut flowers that brighten your life, and perhaps even a green thumb's itch for the season ahead.
To read more about this topic, check out Dr. Dole’s paper, “South and Central America Cut Flower Production and Postharvest Survey” published in HortTechnology at https://doi.org/10.21273/HORTTECH04484-19.
Additional papers of interest by Dr. Dole in the ASHS journals can be found by going to https://journals.ashs.org/search?f_0=author&pageSize=10&q_0=John+M.+Dole&sort=datedescending.
More information about Dr. John Dole is available at https://cals.ncsu.edu/horticultural-science/people/jmdole/.
Learn more about the American Society for Horticultural Science (ASHS) at https://ashs.org/.
HortTechnology, HortScience and the Journal of the American Society for Horticultural Science are all open-access and peer-reviewed journals, published by the American Society of Horticultural Science (ASHS). Find them at journals.ashs.org.
Consider becoming an ASHS member at https://ashs.org/page/Becomeamember!
You can also find the official webpage for Plants, People, Science at ashs.org/plantspeoplesciencepodcast, and we encourage you to send us feedback or suggestions at https://ashs.org/webinarpodcastsuggestion.
Podcast transcripts are available at https://plantspeoplescience.buzzsprout.com.
On LinkedIn find Sam Humphrey at linkedin.com/in/samson-humphrey. Curt Rom is at https://www.linkedin.com/in/curt-rom-611085134/. Lena Wilson is at https://www.linkedin.com/in/lena-wilson-2531a5141/.
Thank you for listening!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Curt Rom (00:00):
Welcome to Plants, people and Science, a podcast of
the American Society forHorticulture Science where we
talk about all thingshorticulture.
I'm the cohost, Curt Rom, fromthe University of Arkansas, and
joining me today is Sam Humphrey.
Sam, how are you doing today?
Sam Humphrey (00:19):
Good morning, Curt .
I'm doing well.
On my way into the house thismorning I saw a squirrel and its
whole face was yellow fromeating tulip poplar flowers.
So the flowers are bloomingover here and it's been a
beautiful spring so far.
Curt Rom (00:35):
Yeah, it's been a beautiful spring.
Here too, it was a very earlyspring.
We had almost a record warmFebruary, notably with a record
coldest temperature in February,but record warm February.
So flowers bloomed early, treesbloomed early.
In my research orchards myapples bloomed about two weeks
(00:55):
earlier than what we would sayis average.
It's one of the earliest bloomsI've ever seen.
I know you work withstrawberries and I always think
about strawberries in the spring.
Tell me about how your work isgoing.
Sam Humphrey (01:08):
My work's going all right.
I've been doing a lot ofwriting, but, yes, the
strawberries are growing.
This week there was astrawberry field day in North
Carolina and, yeah, a lot ofgood things going on for me
right now.
Curt, I saw woodchuck yesterdaytoo.
That was a highlight of my week.
How's your spring going?
Curt Rom (01:26):
Well, spring is going really well.
You know woodchucks.
I think they're cute animals.
I don't want them near my yardor my garden.
I think you know this about me.
I'm a gardener.
I really like it, and sospringtime is really special.
I'm really busy in the garden.
I have a vegetable garden.
I have large flower gardens,they're all blooming.
But as a professor, spring isalso kind of an important time
(01:52):
of year and time of year that'ssimultaneously exciting and
stressful.
So the semester's winding up,final exams are next week and in
just two weeks we havecommencement and commencement
here.
I love commencement becauseit's great to see our students
(02:12):
graduate and move on, whetherthey're undergraduate students
or our master's or our PhDstudents, to see them moving on,
and I really really like that.
Interestingly, our commencementis always the Saturday before
Mother's Day, which is always agood reminder that Mother's Day
(02:32):
is the day after.
Now, when I think aboutMother's Day, I think about
flowers.
I understand it's one of thebiggest days of the year for
giving flowers, gifting flowersto people.
Sam Humphrey (02:47):
Yeah, I remember the first flowers I ever
received.
Do you remember your firstflowers?
Curt Rom (02:52):
You know, I don't know that.
I remember giving my firstflowers to somebody.
It was when I was in highschool and I give flowers
regularly.
I just gifted flowers tosomebody yesterday who was
recovering from some kneesurgery.
I will gift flowers on Mother'sDay.
(03:15):
I'm going to be a consumer andgive some nice flowers, you know
probably some beautiful springroses.
Sam Humphrey (03:23):
Yeah, that's a good choice.
My favorite are the buttercolored like yellow roses that
I've seen in stores, and so manyof us are consumers of flowers.
Many of us remember the firstflowers we gave or that we got.
But what inspired this episodeis I actually didn't know where
(03:44):
cut flowers came from, andseveral members of our podcast
team also didn't know where cutflowers came from.
So joining us today we have DrDole, a professor of
horticultural science at NorthCarolina State University.
He got his bachelor's atMichigan State and his PhD at
the University of Minnesota.
He's a longtime member of ASHS,the American Society for
Horticultural Science, and he'seven served as chairman of the
(04:07):
board.
His current research activitiesfocus on cut flowers, including
new cultivar evaluations,production, post-harvest and
marketing analysis.
Dr Dole is also one of thefounding members of Seed your
Future, a program that teacheskids about careers in
horticulture, and he continuesto inspire a love of
horticulture in young students.
Dr Dole, welcome to the show.
John Dole (04:30):
Thank you very much.
I'm very excited to be here.
Curt Rom (04:34):
Dr Dole, great to see you again.
It's always fascinating for meto have conversations with you.
I have a question before we getgoing Should we call you Dr
Dole or would you prefer forthis conversation we call you
John?
John, please?
Okay, that's great.
Call me Curt.
And of course, Sam is Sam sogood that we're all on a first
(04:56):
name basis here.
So I've known you most of yourcareer and you've always had
this passion for flowers.
Where did your passion forhorticulture and flowers begin?
How did it start?
John Dole (05:09):
You know, I grew up in an area of the country with a
lot of horticulture and that isWest Michigan.
I grew up a little west ofGrand Rapids.
It is an area with a lot offruit production.
I grew up picking strawberriesand raspberries for money.
We were paid by the court forstrawberries and paid by the
pint for raspberries, and thenlater in the season we picked
(05:32):
apples.
It was also a very flowergrowing area.
A lot of Dutch settled in WestMichigan.
They found the environmentthere somewhat similar to the
Netherlands and they broughtwith them their love of flower
growing.
So there's a lot of flowerproduction in the area.
I grew up next to mygrandparents and my grandparents
(05:53):
were hardcore gardeners andthey, you know, they were Dutch
and they put a lot into theirgarden and I really had a lot of
fun helping them out and, youknow, planting and taking care
of the flowers in their garden.
And then, when I got old enough, I started doing a garden in my
(06:15):
, you know, I started takingcare of the family garden, which
was vegetables, and even then,even though we were focused, you
know, the garden was forvegetables.
I always made sure we had a lotof flowers in that.
Early on I remembered findingseed catalogs and just being
enamored with seed catalogs, allthe stuff that was in there,
(06:39):
and, just you know, gettingpermission to order every year
After a couple of years myparents just let me go and I
ordered whatever I wanted to.
So yeah, it's right from when Iwas a kid.
Oh, one more thing I grew upnext to, on the other side of
our house, was a farm marketstand.
Mr Buecher ran the stand and hewould grow vegetables, he would
(07:06):
grow flowers, he grew gladiolus.
So this was back in the dayswhen you couldn't go to a
grocery store and buy gladiolusbut you would go to a farm
market stand and buy them.
So I would help him plant thecorns in the spring and then I
would help him harvest theflowers and then he would sell
them at the stand.
In fact my parents say Istarted when I was eight years
(07:27):
old, going over to my neighborsand quote unquote helping At the
beginning.
I'm not sure how much I helped,but anyway he sort of took me
under his wing.
So I'm just completelysurrounded by horticulture and
flowers when I was a kid, whichwas great by horticulture and
flowers when I was a kid, whichwas great.
Curt Rom (07:45):
You know I was talking about Mother's Day and I know
that's a big day for bouquetsand gifting flowers and
horticulturally we use the termcut flowers.
And the other day I wasteaching in a class about
gardening and gardens and I usedthe term cut flowers and I had
these blank stares from students.
I think we might know what thatis, but why don't you, as the
(08:10):
expert, tell us?
When we use the word cutflowers, what do we really mean?
John Dole (08:16):
You know that's a good question.
It's a question that's actuallybeen changing a lot over the
years.
You know, originally, cutflowers well, cut flowers have
been with us pretty much sincethe beginning, you know, as long
as there were plants withflowers and as long as there
were people, there were peoplecutting flowers and using them.
You know, the historical recordof cut flowers goes way back.
(08:37):
You can see them in some of thedrawings.
You know, even with theEgyptians, you know so.
Cut flowers have been with usforever.
You know, even with theEgyptians, you know so.
Cut flowers have been with usforever.
Really, it's anything ornamentalthat we cut and use and bring
into our homes for, you know, toenjoy them and to liven up our
lives.
The original cut flowers wereflowers that folks cut from
(09:00):
their gardens or they cut fromthe fields outside the village
or whatever.
Now, when we say cuts, a lot oftimes we're talking roses.
Roses are the most importantcut flower in the world in terms
of sales volume, but there arejust so many other cut flowers
that are out there and, to behonest, we sometimes talk about
(09:24):
changing.
For example, I work with theassociation, especially cut
flower growers, and over theyears we've talked about
changing that, because so muchof what we grow and sell is more
than cuts.
We grow cut foliage, we growcut stems, we grow cut berries,
you know, big long winterberries, big long beauty berries
(09:46):
with those gorgeous purpleberries, you know I mean,
there's just so much we growthat's other than cuts.
But you know, getting back toit, it pretty much is anything
that we harvest and bring intoour homes for enjoyment or that
we give to people for enjoyment,or that we give to people, you
(10:07):
know, whether it be birthdays orwhether it be weddings or some
of the other events that we markwith cut flowers.
Sam Humphrey (10:11):
That's incredible.
I didn't.
I wasn't thinking about the cutfoliage and the cut berries.
I it is so much more broad thanI had in my mind, but for for
the purposes of this question.
Mind, but for the purposes ofthis question, I'm curious.
I grew up in Orlando where wehave this beautiful garden with
(10:32):
tons of different cultivars ofroses.
So much variety, but none ofthose roses look like what you
would buy in the grocery store.
Are there longer stems on cutflower cultivar?
What are the differencesbetween what we're used to
seeing in the wild and cutflowers?
John Dole (10:50):
Yeah, that's great.
Yeah, the rose breeding androse development has gone in
different directions and there'sone whole focus on cut flowers.
Those tend to have long stems.
The breeders try to minimizethe number of thorns.
They try to maximize the vaselife.
(11:11):
They generally have awell-formed head that opens up
slowly.
Now in the United States welike medium to large size roses.
The Europeans tend to likesmaller roses with smaller heads
.
The Russians for some reasonlike the biggest roses of all,
(11:34):
which tend to be grown in, likeEcuador.
So there's a little bit ofvariation there, even within the
cut flower industry.
Within the cut flower industry,some of the other
characteristics, hopefully asdisease and insect resistant as
possible.
Our growers need them to beproductive.
There's a lot of discussion onfragrance of roses, and roses
(11:58):
vary quite a bit in fragranceand even in the garden you will
see that they vary somewhat.
I would say that many of themost popular cut flower roses
are not as fragrant as some ofthe classic garden roses.
It's not that they're notfocusing on fragrance, it's just
that there's so manycharacteristics that it takes to
(12:19):
make a successful, profitablecut flower that fragrance
doesn't always make it to thetop of the list, so to speak.
But there is more focus now onbringing in some of those garden
roses into the trade and we seea lot of local growers in the
United States producing allsorts of just gorgeous fragrant
(12:39):
fun what we call garden rosesand selling them as cut flowers.
Many of them they do not haveas long a vase life, they do not
have as long of stems, but forwhat we love roses you know the
fragrance and the lushness theycertainly do meet that criteria.
So the United States isbringing back roses in a
different form.
(13:00):
We also use rose hips, thefruit that roses produce.
There's a whole series ofcultivars that are developed
just for harvesting for the hips.
So that gets back to the fruitthat I mentioned early on.
Curt Rom (13:21):
So yeah, yeah, pretty much, the breeders are going in
different directions dependingon the use.
John, you've made me curious bysome things that you said.
You said the Russians get theirroses from Ecuador, and then
you talked about localproduction.
Tell us a little bit moreElaborate on this.
Where are most cut flowerproduction located, located and
(13:49):
where do they grow various typesof cut flowers for various
markets?
And I know that you published arecent survey about cut flower
production, so maybe tell usabout where they are produced
and some of the challenges thatthese producers have.
John Dole (14:01):
Sure, Now, in the United States, the bulk of our
cut flowers come from Colombiaand Ecuador.
There are dozens and dozens ofcountries from which we get cut
flowers.
You know we get orchids fromThailand and Malaysia.
You know we still get quite abit from the Netherlands, which
(14:22):
is the flower growing and flowergrowing handling country in the
world.
But the bulk of our cut flowerscome from Colombia and Ecuador,
and those are mainly thelarge-scale cut flowers such as
roses, carnations,chrysanthemums, ulstameria.
Those are probably the top four, but we do get many, many other
(14:45):
species from those countries.
Having said that, for cutflowers to come into the United
States, they have to beharvested, they have to be boxed
, they have to be shipped.
You know Mexico can ship themacross the border on a truck.
We get a lot of cut flowersfrom Canada as well.
Those can come on a truck, butfor the most part a lot of cut
flowers have to be put intoboxes and then shipped on an
(15:08):
airplane or, more recently, moreincreasingly, they're shipped
via ships, ships, Ships.
There I'm going to end up witha tongue twister here in a
minute.
But regardless, they have totolerate that process.
They have to tolerate theharvesting, the handling and
then the packaging and theshipping.
(15:29):
And many flowers do.
Roses are very, they handlethat just fine.
Carnations even better.
There's a lot of flowers thatdon't, and so those are grown
locally.
One of the most commonly growncut flowers it's not the most
important, but it's most commonis zinnia.
Zinnia has a whole broad rangeof colors.
(15:53):
You know it's a flower thatsome people think about as their
garden flower.
They love it.
It's just been popular for manyyears.
It doesn't handle being put ina box.
It will not handle beingshipped very well at all.
So dahlia is another one.
We have hydrangeas.
We have so many cut flowers thatwe grow that simply do not fit
(16:14):
the model of being grown inlarge quantities and being
shipped and also being sold.
Now those big growers aregenerally selling through the
big retailers.
That would be, you know, thegrocery stores.
That would be some of thewholesalers.
That would be places likeWalmart and Target where they
sell flowers.
So we have so many otherflowers that don't fit that
(16:39):
production model and it's been alot of fun watching that grow
and develop.
People buying flowers atfarmers markets, people buying
flowers from florists that caterto local growers.
We have a lot of farmerflorists that are growing and
selling and designing with theirown flowers.
So I think I wandered a littlebit off the question there.
But anyway, thanks for givingme an opportunity to talk about
(17:02):
that.
Sam Humphrey (17:04):
Now I plan actually to go to the grocery
store later this week, so I'mgoing to do some research before
I get there so I can arrive andsay, oh, maybe that one was
grown locally and oh, that is sointeresting.
I didn't think about thediversity there.
So for roses specifically, andfor these flowers that have to
(17:25):
be shipped long distances, whatsorts of treatments, what can we
do to?
John Dole (17:34):
increase the shelf life of those flowers.
Well, there's a whole bunch ofthings you know, and that too
you know.
That's my research.
Try to encapsulate all that Letme focus on from your point of
view.
What you would want to do Firstis look for fresh, pull them
out of the bucket if they're ina bucket in the shop and then
check the water just to makesure the water is nice and clean
(17:55):
.
Hopefully they're using somesort of floral solution.
The floral solutions do helpmake them last longer.
There are several products thathave been developed just for
roses and we've tested them andthey do work.
And that's on the productionand the handling side.
So you've got this nice, freshbunch of flowers.
You know, if you're going to bedoing several things that day,
(18:20):
get the flowers near the end sothat they don't sit in the car,
but if it's just gone to thegrocery store or the florist,
then go ahead and get them,bring them home.
Recut the stems, take about aninch off.
We've done work on that.
It really does help.
When you recut the stems, get anice vase.
They will give you a packet offlower food.
(18:40):
Follow the directions.
Usually it's either a quart or apint of water and then mix it
up.
I usually do warm water becauseit dissolves quicker.
Basically it's sugar withvarious other additives into it
to reduce the pH and to keepmicroorganisms from growing into
it.
To reduce the pH and to keepmicroorganisms from growing.
(19:02):
You know we're in the southhere, so we do sweet tea.
If you've ever had a glass ofsweet tea that you've forgotten
somewhere outdoors or in thehouse, you will see very quickly
all sorts of gunk growing.
Okay, that gunk is bad.
Okay, we wouldn't drink it.
So we don't want our flowers todrink it.
So we want to make sure thatour flowers have good, clean
water with no gunk in them.
(19:23):
And the compounds that are inthat packet of flower food keep
that gunk from forming.
And we have done all sorts ofexperiments, some of which I
really don't want to think about, talking and looking at the
gunk that is produced in thesesolutions.
So use that packet of flowerfood and then go ahead, put them
(19:45):
in Now.
The roses will probably drinkup that first solution within a
few days, depending on howthey're handled, maybe in a day
or two.
Then just go ahead, recut thestems one more time and put them
in fresh flowers.
We call that first solution thefirst drink.
(20:05):
If that first drink is a goodflower food, then that will
generally make them last a longtime.
Then you can use just cleanwater from that point on and you
don't have to worry about I'mgoing to put in one more plug
here.
Don't have to worry about I'mgoing to put in one more plug
here If you don't have thatpacket, a good home remedy and
(20:34):
it's about the only one thatworks, because if you go on the
Internet you find 50-50 withwater and that will work for
most flowers to help them lastlong.
So if you're cutting flowersfrom your garden and you don't
have the packets of flower food,use the soda and water mix.
Curt Rom (20:53):
Regarding that shipping.
So you told us what to do atthe consumer level.
What's the state of thetechnology for commercial
producers that are producing itand having to ship it?
How long is the supply chainusually from the time that
they're cut on a farm to thetime they might get to a floor
store or retail, and what's thetechnology that helps them be
(21:17):
preserved during that supplychain?
John Dole (21:20):
The supply chain is quite variable for the flowers
that are grown locally.
If you go to a farmer's marketon Saturday morning, chances are
those flowers were cut the daybefore, they were hopefully put
in a cooler and they were put inthe buckets and then they're
brought to the farm that morningand they were put in the
buckets and then they're broughtto the farm that morning.
If you go to a farm, you knowsome farmers markets on like
(21:40):
Wednesday evening, chances aresome of those flowers were cut
that morning, you know.
So that's the shortest andliterally they're put into
buckets, oftentimes in the field, and sometimes they stay in
that bucket.
Other times they are pulled out, you know, and a bit sorted and
processed and brought into, youknow, and brought to the
farmer's market.
(22:01):
So that's the shortest one andthat's definitely the freshest,
and so for folks who really wantfresh local flowers, you just
can't get anything better thanthat.
You know they're just wonderful.
The longer chains occur withsome of the more far-flung
production locations, you know.
(22:21):
So Columbia, the flowers shouldbe generally harvested in the
morning, although roses if it'sa warm day they might harvest
roses two times a day, maybeeven three times a day, because
they like to cut them just atthe right stage, before they get
too open, and so.
But generally roses and otherflowers are cut in the morning
(22:44):
and then they're brought in assoon as possible into the
processing area.
The lower foliage is removed,they're bunched, the stems are
recut, they're put into ahydration solution to help them
take up water, and then theymight be put into a holding
solution, which generally hassome sugar in it to help them
(23:06):
hold for a while.
Then the shortest is.
They will then be boxed thenext day after they've been
cooled down.
You know flowers are like fruitsand vegetables.
We want to get the field heatout if it's warm.
You know we want tomatoes tocool down.
We want, you know, the beans tocool down.
So we do the same thing withflowers.
(23:27):
We get the field heat out assoon as we can to slow down the
process.
Then they are sleeved,bar-coated for the grocery
stores or whatever, and then putin boxes.
The boxes are palletized, thoseare brought to the airport and
put on the planes.
There are special planes thatare specifically used for making
(23:50):
sure that the flowers get tothe United States.
If they are put on a boat, it'sthe same process, it's just
that they're taken to the portand they're put in containers
which are held at a veryconstant temperature of about
one degree C and then or even alittle bit less, if possible and
then shipped off to the UnitedStates or Japan or wherever
they're going.
So that's the longest andthat's the shortest.
Sam Humphrey (24:13):
That's amazing.
I want to drill down into thisa little bit.
So is it warehouses?
Are these greenhouses?
What does it actually look likeif you were to stand there and
follow the flower?
John Dole (24:25):
Right, you know, if you're a flower grower in the
United States, chances arepretty good you're growing a lot
of stuff in the field.
You might be growing stuff in ahigh tunnel, and then we do have
some of the folks that aregrowing in regular
climate-controlled greenhouses,you know, with pads and fans and
(24:46):
everything like that.
If you're a flower grower inColombia, chances are you're
growing in very largegreenhouses with big vents, very
large greenhouses with bigvents.
The climate in Colombia andEcuador is very close to optimum
, so they don't do muchmanipulation of the climate.
(25:08):
They don't have to, except whenthe weather gets a little wonky
, which it does occasionally, inwhich case they might close up
the vents.
So these are very largegreenhouses with not much
climate control other than ventsthat they open and close to try
to regulate the temperature,and so they're spectacular.
You know, large greenhouses,lots of flowers.
(25:30):
So again, that gives you therange everything from field to
high tunnels, to tunnels withsome climate control, to big
greenhouses with no climatecontrol, to big greenhouses with
full climate control.
A lot of our tulips come fromgreenhouses with full climate
control.
Curt Rom (25:49):
In the shipping once they're cut in their ship.
So you bring down, you take,get out the field temperature.
Is there any use of growthregulators or any other
atmospheric changes?
Do we use ethylene inhibitors,1-mcp or treatments like that to
slow down the flower maturationduring the supply chain process
(26:13):
?
John Dole (26:14):
We sure do, and you mentioned some great stuff, so I
know you know aboutpost-harvest.
Yeah, let's start withtemperature.
That's by far the mostimportant factor.
We need to get the flowers ascold as possible, and as cold as
possible for the species,because we grow a lot of
tropicals as well, some of whichdo not like it cold, or let's
(26:36):
just say 55 degrees is cold forthem, so it's as cold as
possible for that species.
For example, we grow basil.
Basil makes a really great cutfoliage for bouquets, it adds
fragrance and basil isnotoriously cold sensitive.
So we don't store basil in thecooler with other flowers.
(26:57):
So we don't store basil in thecooler with other flowers.
Most of the flowers we like tostore them at around 33, 34, 35.
Having said that, most of thecoolers tend to be warmer, which
is something I try to work onwith the growers.
But anyway, we try to storecold and we try to maintain them
cold all the way through.
(27:17):
This is known as the cold chain, making sure that they stay
cold from the first point thatthey get into the cooler until
they really are sold to theconsumer or sold to the customer
.
The more we can keep the coldchain completely cold, the
better the quality and thelonger the vase life for the
(27:38):
customer.
Completely cold, the better thequality and the longer the vase
life for the customer.
Some of the other things we dothe flower foods we talked about
, you know these are floralsolutions that have an
antimicrobial agent to keep thegunk from forming, an acidifier.
We've done work on this.
Flowers take up acid watereasier than they take up
(28:00):
alkaline water, so acid helps tokeep the gunk from forming, but
it also allows it to go up thestems more easily.
And then, finally, sugar.
You know we all you know cutflowers.
They're not in a greenhouse,they're not photosynthesizing
much anymore.
They need for us to providethem with an energy source and
that is various types of sugars.
(28:22):
And then, finally, you mentionedSTS and 1-MCP, and I will
mention that 1-MCP was developedright here at North Carolina
State University with Ed Sisler.
You know that very well, edSisler and Sylvia Blankenship.
Ed Sisler and SylviaBlankenship.
Sts and 1-MCP block thereceptors for ethylene, which
(28:48):
prevents the flowers from movingalong in their senescence
process.
Many flowers are not thatsensitive to ethylene, but a lot
of flowers are, and thoseflowers are generally treated
with one or the other of theseanti-ethylene agents.
There's a handful of otherchemicals that are used, some of
which are endogenous, that helpto keep the foliage green.
(29:08):
But yeah, those are the mainones.
Curt Rom (29:10):
So STS is silver thiosulfate, an ethylene
inhibitor.
It blocks the production or thereception.
John Dole (29:17):
Yes, and then 1-MCP is 1-methylcyclopropene.
You can see why we say 1-MCP,right.
Sam Humphrey (29:25):
That's a lot of research.
That's happened for decades.
It sounds like.
It sounds like we've made a lotof progress in keeping these
flowers alive.
Thank you for that, john.
I'm curious, though what is thecutting edge?
What work is being currentlydone and focused on that you
find really exciting.
John Dole (29:43):
Oh golly, there's a lot of fun stuff.
I will start with just newspecies, as much as we have a
lot of species already, much aswe have a lot of species already
.
Floriculture is where fashionmeets agriculture, and what I
mean by that is, you know, wehave all the issues of
(30:07):
agriculture, which are, you know, growing it, growing it on time
, growing it high quality, pestdiseases, dealing with the
weather, even in a greenhouse,completely climate controlled
greenhouses.
When it gets hot it gets alittle harder to control the
temperature.
So we have all the issues withag, but we also have fashion.
You know which color?
You know various flowers becomefashionable.
(30:29):
You know Martha Stewart.
You know she's been aroundforever and she's still.
You know, southern living.
If something shows up in one ofthe lifestyle magazines or in
one of the lifestyle televisionshows, suddenly there's people
that are wanting it, and so wehave to deal with that.
We have to deal with all thevariability of you know, and all
(30:51):
the diversity.
So I'll go back to one of thethings we have been worked on
for years, and that is bringingnew species, new cultivars, new
colors to market, and there'sjust some fun, just incredibly
fun stuff.
This industry is veryentrepreneurial.
I swear that they will grow,cut and harvest and sell just
(31:14):
about anything.
I'll tell one quick story.
Years ago I was giving a talkand I made this statement and I
said something about well,except for dandelions, you know.
And then one lady in the backshe rose her hand and she shook
it vigorously and she said thatin the I guess it was in the
(31:34):
forties and fifties you couldfind little bouquets of
dandelions being sold.
So I can't use dandelionanymore.
I have never seen poison ivybeing cut and sold as a cut.
So that one I'm pretty sureabout.
Curt Rom (31:49):
Yeah, I'm glad about that too.
John Dole (31:52):
Some of the other things.
Let's go completely on theother sides of the research
spectrum and that's some of thegenomic work being done To take
a look at.
You know, we've got CRISPR nowwhere we can knock certain genes
out some of the ethylenesensitivity genes you know,
working on that, some of thegenes that cause senescence, you
(32:14):
know.
So there's some great workbeing done to slowly tease that
apart and then do some of theCRISPR work to make flowers
naturally last longer withouthaving to do all of some of the
things that we have to do.
In the middle is some of thephysiological work, and I'll put
in some of the stuff that we'redoing.
(32:34):
We just finished a whole seriesof experiments dealing with
gently freezing flowers, holdingthem at temperatures just below
freezing or just below zerodegrees C.
This was kind of a bucket listproject.
I've always wanted to do this.
There's been some work from the50s that showed that you could
(32:59):
freeze flowers and get them tolast longer, post and fissure,
and so I've always wanted toreplicate this and then, luckily
, I was able to get a project.
Nathan Jahnke, who's with Ballnow he's a PhD student was able
to do it, and Jen Kalinowski,research associate they were the
ones who were able to do thisstuff and, yes, it turns out you
can freeze flowers and you canmake them last longer.
(33:21):
It works especially well withtulips, but it also helps with
peonies, roses and a few otherthings.
So, yeah, we're very excitedabout that.
That's very new.
It'll probably take a whilebefore it gets implemented in
the industry because it's goingto take some changes there, but
yeah, when you say gentlyfreezing them, do you mean like
you take four hours to bring thetemperature down?
Sam Humphrey (33:44):
What does that look like?
John Dole (33:46):
More.
I meant gently, because we'regoing 31 degrees.
That's most of our work wasbeing done.
I think further work would showthat some of the flowers could
be colder, like 30, maybe even29.
So it's not like 20 degrees,you know.
So it's just below.
Freezing Really slows thephysiology down, slows the
(34:10):
ethylene sensitivity down andallows them just to be held for
much longer.
Curt Rom (34:15):
You know, that makes complete sense in my own
experience as a gardener,because my daffodils, my tulips,
my peonies all bloom before ourlast frost and they're not.
They're much less sensitive tofrost than the apples that I
work with which, you know, 28degrees is a disaster.
(34:36):
28 degrees is a disaster.
The daffodils they might look alittle frozen, but as soon as
the temperature is up they comeback to life.
That's great.
Taking that kind of observationto science, john, that's really
fantastic.
John Dole (34:52):
Well, we started with peonies for exactly the reason
you mentioned is that cutpeonies are very tolerant of
cold in the field and they'reprimarily field grown, and also
cut peonies are just beloved.
You know, that's one of theflowers that have just gone
through this huge resurgence,but they only grow and flower in
(35:14):
any one location for just a fewweeks.
They don't grow that.
They're not that amenable togreenhouse production, and so
being able to store cut peonieshas really been kind of very
important for that industry aswell.
So we pick peonies because ofits production issues, but also
(35:35):
because it can tolerate thefreezing, and then we went on to
other flowers that couldtolerate, such as iris and
tulips.
So that's exactly why westarted with those flowers.
Curt Rom (35:47):
I look forward to reading your publications about
that.
Sam Humphrey (35:50):
Something you said , John, caught me really
interested.
You mentioned translating yourscience to the people in the
field who are actuallytransporting and growing these
flowers.
It reminds me of a discussionwe had last year on the podcast
with Dr Teresita Amor.
She is a orchid and anthuriumbreeder in Hawaii and she talked
(36:14):
about how she has to connectwith the growers and figure out
what the growers want and get alot of feedback from them.
How do you connect with peoplein the industry?
John Dole (36:23):
Yeah, you know, we do , especially this industry where
it's so diverse.
The association, especially CutFlower Growers.
I'm executive director for themand have been for quite a while
.
I started as a regionaldirector in 1991 with this group
.
It's just a fun, fantasticgroup of people.
It's about a little less than3,000 members across the United
(36:45):
States, canada and even a fewbeyond that.
The meetings they give farmtours, they give meetings, just
getting to know and meet withthe growers and hearing what
issues they're dealing with.
I also try to get out to farms,I try to visit places you know
(37:07):
some of the wholesalers, some ofthe florists, just to get an
idea of you know what's going on, what are their issues.
What do we need to beaddressing, both in terms of the
research but also in terms ofthe extension?
How do we get the research outthere?
And then even what toincorporate into the classroom.
Curt Rom (37:25):
Well, john, during my lifetime, and probably yours,
we've seen such a tremendouschange in the cut flower
business when I was growing up,or probably even when I was in
college business.
When I was growing up, orprobably even when I was in
college, you would only seeflowers at florist shops.
They were very expensive.
They weren't the commodity thatthey are now.
(37:47):
I mean, our access to gettingflowers is so tremendous and I
think it's the science ofscholars, scientists and those
that can translate thatinformation to our growers.
During your career, you'vereally had the ability to change
and provide access to those ofus as consumers to have flowers
(38:10):
essentially on our table everyday.
I know we think about flowersat Valentine's and we started
this conversation thinking aboutMother's Day, but flowers have
really become a unique commoditybecause the science that's been
created for them.
John Dole (38:25):
You know it's like a lot of our crops.
You know if we could just letfolks know how much work and how
much cool stuff goes into.
You know getting a dahlia toour table, getting a rose to our
table, getting a strawberry toour strawberry shortcake.
You know getting lettuce.
You know there's just our fieldis so cool in so many ways and
(38:50):
the fact that we then get toenjoy it, you know, whether it
be we get to eat it or we get tovisually enjoy it.
Yeah, yeah, we have a coolfield, you know, and it's been
great, great fun.
I wish everybody had theopportunity to work in such a
(39:10):
good field.
Sam Humphrey (39:12):
So for students who may be listening, they could
be undergraduates, they couldbe high school students just
exploring what's out there.
What advice would you givesomeone who might be interested
in cut flower research orornamental plant research?
John Dole (39:27):
Yeah, that's very good.
Internships, that would be thebest thing, even if it's
somebody in high school, whetheror not they do an internship.
But flower farming has spreadacross the United States.
There's lots of farms.
Most towns now have, you know,one grower or so producing
(39:51):
flowers and so there should benot too far away someplace to
work.
You know, if you're a highschool, flower farmers need you
know they need folks to help outwith the production and the
harvesting and you know, anddoing all the things involved
with getting the flowers to sale.
So high school students can getjobs pretty readily.
(40:15):
College students can also getjobs.
They can also set this upformally as an internship.
Most of the flower growers willhave some type of internship,
which can really help them getsome experience.
Then, in terms of the classwork,you know the basic horticulture
courses.
I would take a plant materialscourse, one or two of those, to
(40:37):
learn the variety of species.
You know I've mentioned thediversity of cut flowers several
times here.
We put together a book ofpost-harvest of cut flowers and
in that book we put all thespecies that we knew at least a
few folks were growing and itwas well over 200 different
genera that are being grown andsold as cut flowers.
(41:00):
So students learning which onesthose are, if they have a
post-harvest class at theiruniversity, that would be great.
That'd be icing on the cake Agood floriculture production
course.
So take the basics and then addin some of the floriculture
(41:21):
production and get as muchexperience as you can, whether
it be with a grower, a florist,a wholesaler or whatever you can
.
Curt Rom (41:30):
Well, john, you know this has been really fascinating
, I sort of.
I mean, I've been inhorticulture a long time but
I've learned a lot more aboutthe details of the supply chain.
I'm really interested, havingworked in local foods, the way
that you've been emphasizinglocal floral production.
(41:51):
I've seen that at my market too.
Is local floral production inthe United States an expanding
area?
John Dole (42:01):
It is.
It is.
You know, flower production hasbeen around for well forever,
to be perfectly honest, when youtake the broad view.
But starting in the 2000s andaround early 2010, 11, 12, and
around early 2010, 11, 12, localbecame a big deal and flower
(42:22):
production has just soared andwe're thrilled with that.
It's given a lot more folks anopportunity to start businesses
and to get into flowerproduction.
But yeah, local is a big deal.
The membership of the ASCFG wasaround anywhere from 500 to 700
members for many, many yearsand then, starting in around
(42:43):
2012, with the interest in local, it went up and, like I said,
it's close to 3,000 members nowand a lot of that is because of
the interest in local production.
Sam Humphrey (42:55):
This has been fantastic.
John, Thank you so much forcoming on the show.
John Dole (42:59):
I've enjoyed it.
I've just absolutely enjoyed it.
Thank you all so much.
Sam Humphrey (43:03):
For our listeners.
If you'd like to read moreabout this topic, you can check
out John's paper South andCentral America Cut Flower
Production and Post-HarvestSurvey, which is published in
one of the open sciencepeer-reviewed journals published
by the American Society forHorticultural Science.
Links to this article and a fewmore by John Dole will be
provided in the show notes.
John also writes frequently forthe Association of Specialty
(43:25):
Cut Flower Growers, so we willinclude those links as well.
John Dole (43:31):
I'll add real quick there's another article that
details the domestic industry inthe United States and Canada.
Curt Rom (43:38):
Thank you for that information, john.
Sam, this has just beenfascinating to me and it's
timely, knowing that we'recoming up with one of the
biggest flower days of the year,with Mother's Day For our
listeners.
If this interview resonateswith you, we recommend that you
consider renewing yourmembership or joining the
(43:58):
American Society forHorticulture Science.
Undergraduate students have acomplimentary membership for the
entire time they're anundergraduate student.
Graduate students receive oneyear complimentary and then a
highly discounted membership.
But that's the way to connectto the science is to join the
American Society forHorticulture Science.
To connect to the science is tojoin the American Society for
(44:21):
Horticulture Science and thenyou can be part of the interest
groups like the FloricultureInterest Group or the
Post-Harvest Interest Group.
If you'd like information aboutthe American Society for
Horticulture Science in general,go to our website, ashsorg.
Well, sam, john, that kind ofwraps up today's episode.
Thank you both for being hereand I want to thank our
(44:43):
listeners for tuning in.
Sam, it was really great tovisit with you today and I
really enjoyed this interview.
Sam Humphrey (44:52):
Oh, I'm so excited for this spring and for cut
flowers and for our futureepisodes.
This was Samson Humphrey andKurt Rome talking about cut
flower production and we hopeyou join us again, Thank you.
Welcome to Plants, people and Science, a podcast of
the American Society forHorticulture Science where we
talk about all thingshorticulture.
I'm the cohost, Curt Rom, fromthe University of Arkansas, and
joining me today is Sam Humphrey.
Sam, how are you doing today?
Sam Humphrey (00:19):
Good morning, Curt .
I'm doing well.
On my way into the house thismorning I saw a squirrel and its
whole face was yellow fromeating tulip poplar flowers.
So the flowers are bloomingover here and it's been a
beautiful spring so far.
Curt Rom (00:35):
Yeah, it's been a beautiful spring.
Here too, it was a very earlyspring.
We had almost a record warmFebruary, notably with a record
coldest temperature in February,but record warm February.
So flowers bloomed early, treesbloomed early.
In my research orchards myapples bloomed about two weeks
(00:55):
earlier than what we would sayis average.
It's one of the earliest bloomsI've ever seen.
I know you work withstrawberries and I always think
about strawberries in the spring.
Tell me about how your work isgoing.
Sam Humphrey (01:08):
My work's going all right.
I've been doing a lot ofwriting, but, yes, the
strawberries are growing.
This week there was astrawberry field day in North
Carolina and, yeah, a lot ofgood things going on for me
right now.
Curt, I saw woodchuck yesterdaytoo.
That was a highlight of my week.
How's your spring going?
Curt Rom (01:26):
Well, spring is going really well.
You know woodchucks.
I think they're cute animals.
I don't want them near my yardor my garden.
I think you know this about me.
I'm a gardener.
I really like it, and sospringtime is really special.
I'm really busy in the garden.
I have a vegetable garden.
I have large flower gardens,they're all blooming.
But as a professor, spring isalso kind of an important time
(01:52):
of year and time of year that'ssimultaneously exciting and
stressful.
So the semester's winding up,final exams are next week and in
just two weeks we havecommencement and commencement
here.
I love commencement becauseit's great to see our students
(02:12):
graduate and move on, whetherthey're undergraduate students
or our master's or our PhDstudents, to see them moving on,
and I really really like that.
Interestingly, our commencementis always the Saturday before
Mother's Day, which is always agood reminder that Mother's Day
(02:32):
is the day after.
Now, when I think aboutMother's Day, I think about
flowers.
I understand it's one of thebiggest days of the year for
giving flowers, gifting flowersto people.
Sam Humphrey (02:47):
Yeah, I remember the first flowers I ever
received.
Do you remember your firstflowers?
Curt Rom (02:52):
You know, I don't know that.
I remember giving my firstflowers to somebody.
It was when I was in highschool and I give flowers
regularly.
I just gifted flowers tosomebody yesterday who was
recovering from some kneesurgery.
I will gift flowers on Mother'sDay.
(03:15):
I'm going to be a consumer andgive some nice flowers, you know
probably some beautiful springroses.
Sam Humphrey (03:23):
Yeah, that's a good choice.
My favorite are the buttercolored like yellow roses that
I've seen in stores, and so manyof us are consumers of flowers.
Many of us remember the firstflowers we gave or that we got.
But what inspired this episodeis I actually didn't know where
(03:44):
cut flowers came from, andseveral members of our podcast
team also didn't know where cutflowers came from.
So joining us today we have DrDole, a professor of
horticultural science at NorthCarolina State University.
He got his bachelor's atMichigan State and his PhD at
the University of Minnesota.
He's a longtime member of ASHS,the American Society for
Horticultural Science, and he'seven served as chairman of the
(04:07):
board.
His current research activitiesfocus on cut flowers, including
new cultivar evaluations,production, post-harvest and
marketing analysis.
Dr Dole is also one of thefounding members of Seed your
Future, a program that teacheskids about careers in
horticulture, and he continuesto inspire a love of
horticulture in young students.
Dr Dole, welcome to the show.
John Dole (04:30):
Thank you very much.
I'm very excited to be here.
Curt Rom (04:34):
Dr Dole, great to see you again.
It's always fascinating for meto have conversations with you.
I have a question before we getgoing Should we call you Dr
Dole or would you prefer forthis conversation we call you
John?
John, please?
Okay, that's great.
Call me Curt.
And of course, Sam is Sam sogood that we're all on a first
(04:56):
name basis here.
So I've known you most of yourcareer and you've always had
this passion for flowers.
Where did your passion forhorticulture and flowers begin?
How did it start?
John Dole (05:09):
You know, I grew up in an area of the country with a
lot of horticulture and that isWest Michigan.
I grew up a little west ofGrand Rapids.
It is an area with a lot offruit production.
I grew up picking strawberriesand raspberries for money.
We were paid by the court forstrawberries and paid by the
pint for raspberries, and thenlater in the season we picked
(05:32):
apples.
It was also a very flowergrowing area.
A lot of Dutch settled in WestMichigan.
They found the environmentthere somewhat similar to the
Netherlands and they broughtwith them their love of flower
growing.
So there's a lot of flowerproduction in the area.
I grew up next to mygrandparents and my grandparents
(05:53):
were hardcore gardeners andthey, you know, they were Dutch
and they put a lot into theirgarden and I really had a lot of
fun helping them out and, youknow, planting and taking care
of the flowers in their garden.
And then, when I got old enough, I started doing a garden in my
(06:15):
, you know, I started takingcare of the family garden, which
was vegetables, and even then,even though we were focused, you
know, the garden was forvegetables.
I always made sure we had a lotof flowers in that.
Early on I remembered findingseed catalogs and just being
enamored with seed catalogs, allthe stuff that was in there,
(06:39):
and, just you know, gettingpermission to order every year
After a couple of years myparents just let me go and I
ordered whatever I wanted to.
So yeah, it's right from when Iwas a kid.
Oh, one more thing I grew upnext to, on the other side of
our house, was a farm marketstand.
Mr Buecher ran the stand and hewould grow vegetables, he would
(07:06):
grow flowers, he grew gladiolus.
So this was back in the dayswhen you couldn't go to a
grocery store and buy gladiolusbut you would go to a farm
market stand and buy them.
So I would help him plant thecorns in the spring and then I
would help him harvest theflowers and then he would sell
them at the stand.
In fact my parents say Istarted when I was eight years
(07:27):
old, going over to my neighborsand quote unquote helping At the
beginning.
I'm not sure how much I helped,but anyway he sort of took me
under his wing.
So I'm just completelysurrounded by horticulture and
flowers when I was a kid, whichwas great by horticulture and
flowers when I was a kid, whichwas great.
Curt Rom (07:45):
You know I was talking about Mother's Day and I know
that's a big day for bouquetsand gifting flowers and
horticulturally we use the termcut flowers.
And the other day I wasteaching in a class about
gardening and gardens and I usedthe term cut flowers and I had
these blank stares from students.
I think we might know what thatis, but why don't you, as the
(08:10):
expert, tell us?
When we use the word cutflowers, what do we really mean?
John Dole (08:16):
You know that's a good question.
It's a question that's actuallybeen changing a lot over the
years.
You know, originally, cutflowers well, cut flowers have
been with us pretty much sincethe beginning, you know, as long
as there were plants withflowers and as long as there
were people, there were peoplecutting flowers and using them.
You know, the historical recordof cut flowers goes way back.
(08:37):
You can see them in some of thedrawings.
You know, even with theEgyptians, you know so.
Cut flowers have been with usforever.
You know, even with theEgyptians, you know so.
Cut flowers have been with usforever.
Really, it's anything ornamentalthat we cut and use and bring
into our homes for, you know, toenjoy them and to liven up our
lives.
The original cut flowers wereflowers that folks cut from
(09:00):
their gardens or they cut fromthe fields outside the village
or whatever.
Now, when we say cuts, a lot oftimes we're talking roses.
Roses are the most importantcut flower in the world in terms
of sales volume, but there arejust so many other cut flowers
that are out there and, to behonest, we sometimes talk about
(09:24):
changing.
For example, I work with theassociation, especially cut
flower growers, and over theyears we've talked about
changing that, because so muchof what we grow and sell is more
than cuts.
We grow cut foliage, we growcut stems, we grow cut berries,
you know, big long winterberries, big long beauty berries
(09:46):
with those gorgeous purpleberries, you know I mean,
there's just so much we growthat's other than cuts.
But you know, getting back toit, it pretty much is anything
that we harvest and bring intoour homes for enjoyment or that
we give to people for enjoyment,or that we give to people, you
(10:07):
know, whether it be birthdays orwhether it be weddings or some
of the other events that we markwith cut flowers.
Sam Humphrey (10:11):
That's incredible.
I didn't.
I wasn't thinking about the cutfoliage and the cut berries.
I it is so much more broad thanI had in my mind, but for for
the purposes of this question.
Mind, but for the purposes ofthis question, I'm curious.
I grew up in Orlando where wehave this beautiful garden with
(10:32):
tons of different cultivars ofroses.
So much variety, but none ofthose roses look like what you
would buy in the grocery store.
Are there longer stems on cutflower cultivar?
What are the differencesbetween what we're used to
seeing in the wild and cutflowers?
John Dole (10:50):
Yeah, that's great.
Yeah, the rose breeding androse development has gone in
different directions and there'sone whole focus on cut flowers.
Those tend to have long stems.
The breeders try to minimizethe number of thorns.
They try to maximize the vaselife.
(11:11):
They generally have awell-formed head that opens up
slowly.
Now in the United States welike medium to large size roses.
The Europeans tend to likesmaller roses with smaller heads
.
The Russians for some reasonlike the biggest roses of all,
(11:34):
which tend to be grown in, likeEcuador.
So there's a little bit ofvariation there, even within the
cut flower industry.
Within the cut flower industry,some of the other
characteristics, hopefully asdisease and insect resistant as
possible.
Our growers need them to beproductive.
There's a lot of discussion onfragrance of roses, and roses
(11:58):
vary quite a bit in fragranceand even in the garden you will
see that they vary somewhat.
I would say that many of themost popular cut flower roses
are not as fragrant as some ofthe classic garden roses.
It's not that they're notfocusing on fragrance, it's just
that there's so manycharacteristics that it takes to
(12:19):
make a successful, profitablecut flower that fragrance
doesn't always make it to thetop of the list, so to speak.
But there is more focus now onbringing in some of those garden
roses into the trade and we seea lot of local growers in the
United States producing allsorts of just gorgeous fragrant
(12:39):
fun what we call garden rosesand selling them as cut flowers.
Many of them they do not haveas long a vase life, they do not
have as long of stems, but forwhat we love roses you know the
fragrance and the lushness theycertainly do meet that criteria.
So the United States isbringing back roses in a
different form.
(13:00):
We also use rose hips, thefruit that roses produce.
There's a whole series ofcultivars that are developed
just for harvesting for the hips.
So that gets back to the fruitthat I mentioned early on.
Curt Rom (13:21):
So yeah, yeah, pretty much, the breeders are going in
different directions dependingon the use.
John, you've made me curious bysome things that you said.
You said the Russians get theirroses from Ecuador, and then
you talked about localproduction.
Tell us a little bit moreElaborate on this.
Where are most cut flowerproduction located, located and
(13:49):
where do they grow various typesof cut flowers for various
markets?
And I know that you published arecent survey about cut flower
production, so maybe tell usabout where they are produced
and some of the challenges thatthese producers have.
John Dole (14:01):
Sure, Now, in the United States, the bulk of our
cut flowers come from Colombiaand Ecuador.
There are dozens and dozens ofcountries from which we get cut
flowers.
You know we get orchids fromThailand and Malaysia.
You know we still get quite abit from the Netherlands, which
(14:22):
is the flower growing and flowergrowing handling country in the
world.
But the bulk of our cut flowerscome from Colombia and Ecuador,
and those are mainly thelarge-scale cut flowers such as
roses, carnations,chrysanthemums, ulstameria.
Those are probably the top four, but we do get many, many other
(14:45):
species from those countries.
Having said that, for cutflowers to come into the United
States, they have to beharvested, they have to be boxed
, they have to be shipped.
You know Mexico can ship themacross the border on a truck.
We get a lot of cut flowersfrom Canada as well.
Those can come on a truck, butfor the most part a lot of cut
flowers have to be put intoboxes and then shipped on an
(15:08):
airplane or, more recently, moreincreasingly, they're shipped
via ships, ships, Ships.
There I'm going to end up witha tongue twister here in a
minute.
But regardless, they have totolerate that process.
They have to tolerate theharvesting, the handling and
then the packaging and theshipping.
(15:29):
And many flowers do.
Roses are very, they handlethat just fine.
Carnations even better.
There's a lot of flowers thatdon't, and so those are grown
locally.
One of the most commonly growncut flowers it's not the most
important, but it's most commonis zinnia.
Zinnia has a whole broad rangeof colors.
(15:53):
You know it's a flower thatsome people think about as their
garden flower.
They love it.
It's just been popular for manyyears.
It doesn't handle being put ina box.
It will not handle beingshipped very well at all.
So dahlia is another one.
We have hydrangeas.
We have so many cut flowers thatwe grow that simply do not fit
(16:14):
the model of being grown inlarge quantities and being
shipped and also being sold.
Now those big growers aregenerally selling through the
big retailers.
That would be, you know, thegrocery stores.
That would be some of thewholesalers.
That would be places likeWalmart and Target where they
sell flowers.
So we have so many otherflowers that don't fit that
(16:39):
production model and it's been alot of fun watching that grow
and develop.
People buying flowers atfarmers markets, people buying
flowers from florists that caterto local growers.
We have a lot of farmerflorists that are growing and
selling and designing with theirown flowers.
So I think I wandered a littlebit off the question there.
But anyway, thanks for givingme an opportunity to talk about
(17:02):
that.
Sam Humphrey (17:04):
Now I plan actually to go to the grocery
store later this week, so I'mgoing to do some research before
I get there so I can arrive andsay, oh, maybe that one was
grown locally and oh, that is sointeresting.
I didn't think about thediversity there.
So for roses specifically, andfor these flowers that have to
(17:25):
be shipped long distances, whatsorts of treatments, what can we
do to?
John Dole (17:34):
increase the shelf life of those flowers.
Well, there's a whole bunch ofthings you know, and that too
you know.
That's my research.
Try to encapsulate all that Letme focus on from your point of
view.
What you would want to do Firstis look for fresh, pull them
out of the bucket if they're ina bucket in the shop and then
check the water just to makesure the water is nice and clean
(17:55):
.
Hopefully they're using somesort of floral solution.
The floral solutions do helpmake them last longer.
There are several products thathave been developed just for
roses and we've tested them andthey do work.
And that's on the productionand the handling side.
So you've got this nice, freshbunch of flowers.
You know, if you're going to bedoing several things that day,
(18:20):
get the flowers near the end sothat they don't sit in the car,
but if it's just gone to thegrocery store or the florist,
then go ahead and get them,bring them home.
Recut the stems, take about aninch off.
We've done work on that.
It really does help.
When you recut the stems, get anice vase.
They will give you a packet offlower food.
(18:40):
Follow the directions.
Usually it's either a quart or apint of water and then mix it
up.
I usually do warm water becauseit dissolves quicker.
Basically it's sugar withvarious other additives into it
to reduce the pH and to keepmicroorganisms from growing into
it.
To reduce the pH and to keepmicroorganisms from growing.
(19:02):
You know we're in the southhere, so we do sweet tea.
If you've ever had a glass ofsweet tea that you've forgotten
somewhere outdoors or in thehouse, you will see very quickly
all sorts of gunk growing.
Okay, that gunk is bad.
Okay, we wouldn't drink it.
So we don't want our flowers todrink it.
So we want to make sure thatour flowers have good, clean
water with no gunk in them.
(19:23):
And the compounds that are inthat packet of flower food keep
that gunk from forming.
And we have done all sorts ofexperiments, some of which I
really don't want to think about, talking and looking at the
gunk that is produced in thesesolutions.
So use that packet of flowerfood and then go ahead, put them
(19:45):
in Now.
The roses will probably drinkup that first solution within a
few days, depending on howthey're handled, maybe in a day
or two.
Then just go ahead, recut thestems one more time and put them
in fresh flowers.
We call that first solution thefirst drink.
(20:05):
If that first drink is a goodflower food, then that will
generally make them last a longtime.
Then you can use just cleanwater from that point on and you
don't have to worry about I'mgoing to put in one more plug
here.
Don't have to worry about I'mgoing to put in one more plug
here If you don't have thatpacket, a good home remedy and
(20:34):
it's about the only one thatworks, because if you go on the
Internet you find 50-50 withwater and that will work for
most flowers to help them lastlong.
So if you're cutting flowersfrom your garden and you don't
have the packets of flower food,use the soda and water mix.
Curt Rom (20:53):
Regarding that shipping.
So you told us what to do atthe consumer level.
What's the state of thetechnology for commercial
producers that are producing itand having to ship it?
How long is the supply chainusually from the time that
they're cut on a farm to thetime they might get to a floor
store or retail, and what's thetechnology that helps them be
(21:17):
preserved during that supplychain?
John Dole (21:20):
The supply chain is quite variable for the flowers
that are grown locally.
If you go to a farmer's marketon Saturday morning, chances are
those flowers were cut the daybefore, they were hopefully put
in a cooler and they were put inthe buckets and then they're
brought to the farm that morningand they were put in the
buckets and then they're broughtto the farm that morning.
If you go to a farm, you knowsome farmers markets on like
(21:40):
Wednesday evening, chances aresome of those flowers were cut
that morning, you know.
So that's the shortest andliterally they're put into
buckets, oftentimes in the field, and sometimes they stay in
that bucket.
Other times they are pulled out, you know, and a bit sorted and
processed and brought into, youknow, and brought to the
farmer's market.
(22:01):
So that's the shortest one andthat's definitely the freshest,
and so for folks who really wantfresh local flowers, you just
can't get anything better thanthat.
You know they're just wonderful.
The longer chains occur withsome of the more far-flung
production locations, you know.
(22:21):
So Columbia, the flowers shouldbe generally harvested in the
morning, although roses if it'sa warm day they might harvest
roses two times a day, maybeeven three times a day, because
they like to cut them just atthe right stage, before they get
too open, and so.
But generally roses and otherflowers are cut in the morning
(22:44):
and then they're brought in assoon as possible into the
processing area.
The lower foliage is removed,they're bunched, the stems are
recut, they're put into ahydration solution to help them
take up water, and then theymight be put into a holding
solution, which generally hassome sugar in it to help them
(23:06):
hold for a while.
Then the shortest is.
They will then be boxed thenext day after they've been
cooled down.
You know flowers are like fruitsand vegetables.
We want to get the field heatout if it's warm.
You know we want tomatoes tocool down.
We want, you know, the beans tocool down.
So we do the same thing withflowers.
(23:27):
We get the field heat out assoon as we can to slow down the
process.
Then they are sleeved,bar-coated for the grocery
stores or whatever, and then putin boxes.
The boxes are palletized, thoseare brought to the airport and
put on the planes.
There are special planes thatare specifically used for making
(23:50):
sure that the flowers get tothe United States.
If they are put on a boat, it'sthe same process, it's just
that they're taken to the portand they're put in containers
which are held at a veryconstant temperature of about
one degree C and then or even alittle bit less, if possible and
then shipped off to the UnitedStates or Japan or wherever
they're going.
So that's the longest andthat's the shortest.
Sam Humphrey (24:13):
That's amazing.
I want to drill down into thisa little bit.
So is it warehouses?
Are these greenhouses?
What does it actually look likeif you were to stand there and
follow the flower?
John Dole (24:25):
Right, you know, if you're a flower grower in the
United States, chances arepretty good you're growing a lot
of stuff in the field.
You might be growing stuff in ahigh tunnel, and then we do have
some of the folks that aregrowing in regular
climate-controlled greenhouses,you know, with pads and fans and
(24:46):
everything like that.
If you're a flower grower inColombia, chances are you're
growing in very largegreenhouses with big vents, very
large greenhouses with bigvents.
The climate in Colombia andEcuador is very close to optimum
, so they don't do muchmanipulation of the climate.
(25:08):
They don't have to, except whenthe weather gets a little wonky
, which it does occasionally, inwhich case they might close up
the vents.
So these are very largegreenhouses with not much
climate control other than ventsthat they open and close to try
to regulate the temperature,and so they're spectacular.
You know, large greenhouses,lots of flowers.
(25:30):
So again, that gives you therange everything from field to
high tunnels, to tunnels withsome climate control, to big
greenhouses with no climatecontrol, to big greenhouses with
full climate control.
A lot of our tulips come fromgreenhouses with full climate
control.
Curt Rom (25:49):
In the shipping once they're cut in their ship.
So you bring down, you take,get out the field temperature.
Is there any use of growthregulators or any other
atmospheric changes?
Do we use ethylene inhibitors,1-mcp or treatments like that to
slow down the flower maturationduring the supply chain process
(26:13):
?
John Dole (26:14):
We sure do, and you mentioned some great stuff, so I
know you know aboutpost-harvest.
Yeah, let's start withtemperature.
That's by far the mostimportant factor.
We need to get the flowers ascold as possible, and as cold as
possible for the species,because we grow a lot of
tropicals as well, some of whichdo not like it cold, or let's
(26:36):
just say 55 degrees is cold forthem, so it's as cold as
possible for that species.
For example, we grow basil.
Basil makes a really great cutfoliage for bouquets, it adds
fragrance and basil isnotoriously cold sensitive.
So we don't store basil in thecooler with other flowers.
(26:57):
So we don't store basil in thecooler with other flowers.
Most of the flowers we like tostore them at around 33, 34, 35.
Having said that, most of thecoolers tend to be warmer, which
is something I try to work onwith the growers.
But anyway, we try to storecold and we try to maintain them
cold all the way through.
(27:17):
This is known as the cold chain, making sure that they stay
cold from the first point thatthey get into the cooler until
they really are sold to theconsumer or sold to the customer
.
The more we can keep the coldchain completely cold, the
better the quality and thelonger the vase life for the
(27:38):
customer.
Completely cold, the better thequality and the longer the vase
life for the customer.
Some of the other things we dothe flower foods we talked about
, you know these are floralsolutions that have an
antimicrobial agent to keep thegunk from forming, an acidifier.
We've done work on this.
Flowers take up acid watereasier than they take up
(28:00):
alkaline water, so acid helps tokeep the gunk from forming, but
it also allows it to go up thestems more easily.
And then, finally, sugar.
You know we all you know cutflowers.
They're not in a greenhouse,they're not photosynthesizing
much anymore.
They need for us to providethem with an energy source and
that is various types of sugars.
(28:22):
And then, finally, you mentionedSTS and 1-MCP, and I will
mention that 1-MCP was developedright here at North Carolina
State University with Ed Sisler.
You know that very well, edSisler and Sylvia Blankenship.
Ed Sisler and SylviaBlankenship.
Sts and 1-MCP block thereceptors for ethylene, which
(28:48):
prevents the flowers from movingalong in their senescence
process.
Many flowers are not thatsensitive to ethylene, but a lot
of flowers are, and thoseflowers are generally treated
with one or the other of theseanti-ethylene agents.
There's a handful of otherchemicals that are used, some of
which are endogenous, that helpto keep the foliage green.
(29:08):
But yeah, those are the mainones.
Curt Rom (29:10):
So STS is silver thiosulfate, an ethylene
inhibitor.
It blocks the production or thereception.
John Dole (29:17):
Yes, and then 1-MCP is 1-methylcyclopropene.
You can see why we say 1-MCP,right.
Sam Humphrey (29:25):
That's a lot of research.
That's happened for decades.
It sounds like.
It sounds like we've made a lotof progress in keeping these
flowers alive.
Thank you for that, john.
I'm curious, though what is thecutting edge?
What work is being currentlydone and focused on that you
find really exciting.
John Dole (29:43):
Oh golly, there's a lot of fun stuff.
I will start with just newspecies, as much as we have a
lot of species already, much aswe have a lot of species already
.
Floriculture is where fashionmeets agriculture, and what I
mean by that is, you know, wehave all the issues of
(30:07):
agriculture, which are, you know, growing it, growing it on time
, growing it high quality, pestdiseases, dealing with the
weather, even in a greenhouse,completely climate controlled
greenhouses.
When it gets hot it gets alittle harder to control the
temperature.
So we have all the issues withag, but we also have fashion.
You know which color?
You know various flowers becomefashionable.
(30:29):
You know Martha Stewart.
You know she's been aroundforever and she's still.
You know, southern living.
If something shows up in one ofthe lifestyle magazines or in
one of the lifestyle televisionshows, suddenly there's people
that are wanting it, and so wehave to deal with that.
We have to deal with all thevariability of you know, and all
(30:51):
the diversity.
So I'll go back to one of thethings we have been worked on
for years, and that is bringingnew species, new cultivars, new
colors to market, and there'sjust some fun, just incredibly
fun stuff.
This industry is veryentrepreneurial.
I swear that they will grow,cut and harvest and sell just
(31:14):
about anything.
I'll tell one quick story.
Years ago I was giving a talkand I made this statement and I
said something about well,except for dandelions, you know.
And then one lady in the backshe rose her hand and she shook
it vigorously and she said thatin the I guess it was in the
(31:34):
forties and fifties you couldfind little bouquets of
dandelions being sold.
So I can't use dandelionanymore.
I have never seen poison ivybeing cut and sold as a cut.
So that one I'm pretty sureabout.
Curt Rom (31:49):
Yeah, I'm glad about that too.
John Dole (31:52):
Some of the other things.
Let's go completely on theother sides of the research
spectrum and that's some of thegenomic work being done To take
a look at.
You know, we've got CRISPR nowwhere we can knock certain genes
out some of the ethylenesensitivity genes you know,
working on that, some of thegenes that cause senescence, you
(32:14):
know.
So there's some great workbeing done to slowly tease that
apart and then do some of theCRISPR work to make flowers
naturally last longer withouthaving to do all of some of the
things that we have to do.
In the middle is some of thephysiological work, and I'll put
in some of the stuff that we'redoing.
(32:34):
We just finished a whole seriesof experiments dealing with
gently freezing flowers, holdingthem at temperatures just below
freezing or just below zerodegrees C.
This was kind of a bucket listproject.
I've always wanted to do this.
There's been some work from the50s that showed that you could
(32:59):
freeze flowers and get them tolast longer, post and fissure,
and so I've always wanted toreplicate this and then, luckily
, I was able to get a project.
Nathan Jahnke, who's with Ballnow he's a PhD student was able
to do it, and Jen Kalinowski,research associate they were the
ones who were able to do thisstuff and, yes, it turns out you
can freeze flowers and you canmake them last longer.
(33:21):
It works especially well withtulips, but it also helps with
peonies, roses and a few otherthings.
So, yeah, we're very excitedabout that.
That's very new.
It'll probably take a whilebefore it gets implemented in
the industry because it's goingto take some changes there, but
yeah, when you say gentlyfreezing them, do you mean like
you take four hours to bring thetemperature down?
Sam Humphrey (33:44):
What does that look like?
John Dole (33:46):
More.
I meant gently, because we'regoing 31 degrees.
That's most of our work wasbeing done.
I think further work would showthat some of the flowers could
be colder, like 30, maybe even29.
So it's not like 20 degrees,you know.
So it's just below.
Freezing Really slows thephysiology down, slows the
(34:10):
ethylene sensitivity down andallows them just to be held for
much longer.
Curt Rom (34:15):
You know, that makes complete sense in my own
experience as a gardener,because my daffodils, my tulips,
my peonies all bloom before ourlast frost and they're not.
They're much less sensitive tofrost than the apples that I
work with which, you know, 28degrees is a disaster.
(34:36):
28 degrees is a disaster.
The daffodils they might look alittle frozen, but as soon as
the temperature is up they comeback to life.
That's great.
Taking that kind of observationto science, john, that's really
fantastic.
John Dole (34:52):
Well, we started with peonies for exactly the reason
you mentioned is that cutpeonies are very tolerant of
cold in the field and they'reprimarily field grown, and also
cut peonies are just beloved.
You know, that's one of theflowers that have just gone
through this huge resurgence,but they only grow and flower in
(35:14):
any one location for just a fewweeks.
They don't grow that.
They're not that amenable togreenhouse production, and so
being able to store cut peonieshas really been kind of very
important for that industry aswell.
So we pick peonies because ofits production issues, but also
(35:35):
because it can tolerate thefreezing, and then we went on to
other flowers that couldtolerate, such as iris and
tulips.
So that's exactly why westarted with those flowers.
Curt Rom (35:47):
I look forward to reading your publications about
that.
Sam Humphrey (35:50):
Something you said , John, caught me really
interested.
You mentioned translating yourscience to the people in the
field who are actuallytransporting and growing these
flowers.
It reminds me of a discussionwe had last year on the podcast
with Dr Teresita Amor.
She is a orchid and anthuriumbreeder in Hawaii and she talked
(36:14):
about how she has to connectwith the growers and figure out
what the growers want and get alot of feedback from them.
How do you connect with peoplein the industry?
John Dole (36:23):
Yeah, you know, we do , especially this industry where
it's so diverse.
The association, especially CutFlower Growers.
I'm executive director for themand have been for quite a while
.
I started as a regionaldirector in 1991 with this group
.
It's just a fun, fantasticgroup of people.
It's about a little less than3,000 members across the United
(36:45):
States, canada and even a fewbeyond that.
The meetings they give farmtours, they give meetings, just
getting to know and meet withthe growers and hearing what
issues they're dealing with.
I also try to get out to farms,I try to visit places you know
(37:07):
some of the wholesalers, some ofthe florists, just to get an
idea of you know what's going on, what are their issues.
What do we need to beaddressing, both in terms of the
research but also in terms ofthe extension?
How do we get the research outthere?
And then even what toincorporate into the classroom.
Curt Rom (37:25):
Well, john, during my lifetime, and probably yours,
we've seen such a tremendouschange in the cut flower
business when I was growing up,or probably even when I was in
college business.
When I was growing up, orprobably even when I was in
college, you would only seeflowers at florist shops.
They were very expensive.
They weren't the commodity thatthey are now.
(37:47):
I mean, our access to gettingflowers is so tremendous and I
think it's the science ofscholars, scientists and those
that can translate thatinformation to our growers.
During your career, you'vereally had the ability to change
and provide access to those ofus as consumers to have flowers
(38:10):
essentially on our table everyday.
I know we think about flowersat Valentine's and we started
this conversation thinking aboutMother's Day, but flowers have
really become a unique commoditybecause the science that's been
created for them.
John Dole (38:25):
You know it's like a lot of our crops.
You know if we could just letfolks know how much work and how
much cool stuff goes into.
You know getting a dahlia toour table, getting a rose to our
table, getting a strawberry toour strawberry shortcake.
You know getting lettuce.
You know there's just our fieldis so cool in so many ways and
(38:50):
the fact that we then get toenjoy it, you know, whether it
be we get to eat it or we get tovisually enjoy it.
Yeah, yeah, we have a coolfield, you know, and it's been
great, great fun.
I wish everybody had theopportunity to work in such a
(39:10):
good field.
Sam Humphrey (39:12):
So for students who may be listening, they could
be undergraduates, they couldbe high school students just
exploring what's out there.
What advice would you givesomeone who might be interested
in cut flower research orornamental plant research?
John Dole (39:27):
Yeah, that's very good.
Internships, that would be thebest thing, even if it's
somebody in high school, whetheror not they do an internship.
But flower farming has spreadacross the United States.
There's lots of farms.
Most towns now have, you know,one grower or so producing
(39:51):
flowers and so there should benot too far away someplace to
work.
You know, if you're a highschool, flower farmers need you
know they need folks to help outwith the production and the
harvesting and you know, anddoing all the things involved
with getting the flowers to sale.
So high school students can getjobs pretty readily.
(40:15):
College students can also getjobs.
They can also set this upformally as an internship.
Most of the flower growers willhave some type of internship,
which can really help them getsome experience.
Then, in terms of the classwork,you know the basic horticulture
courses.
I would take a plant materialscourse, one or two of those, to
(40:37):
learn the variety of species.
You know I've mentioned thediversity of cut flowers several
times here.
We put together a book ofpost-harvest of cut flowers and
in that book we put all thespecies that we knew at least a
few folks were growing and itwas well over 200 different
genera that are being grown andsold as cut flowers.
(41:00):
So students learning which onesthose are, if they have a
post-harvest class at theiruniversity, that would be great.
That'd be icing on the cake Agood floriculture production
course.
So take the basics and then addin some of the floriculture
(41:21):
production and get as muchexperience as you can, whether
it be with a grower, a florist,a wholesaler or whatever you can
.
Curt Rom (41:30):
Well, john, you know this has been really fascinating
, I sort of.
I mean, I've been inhorticulture a long time but
I've learned a lot more aboutthe details of the supply chain.
I'm really interested, havingworked in local foods, the way
that you've been emphasizinglocal floral production.
(41:51):
I've seen that at my market too.
Is local floral production inthe United States an expanding
area?
John Dole (42:01):
It is.
It is.
You know, flower production hasbeen around for well forever,
to be perfectly honest, when youtake the broad view.
But starting in the 2000s andaround early 2010, 11, 12, and
around early 2010, 11, 12, localbecame a big deal and flower
(42:22):
production has just soared andwe're thrilled with that.
It's given a lot more folks anopportunity to start businesses
and to get into flowerproduction.
But yeah, local is a big deal.
The membership of the ASCFG wasaround anywhere from 500 to 700
members for many, many yearsand then, starting in around
(42:43):
2012, with the interest in local, it went up and, like I said,
it's close to 3,000 members nowand a lot of that is because of
the interest in local production.
Sam Humphrey (42:55):
This has been fantastic.
John, Thank you so much forcoming on the show.
John Dole (42:59):
I've enjoyed it.
I've just absolutely enjoyed it.
Thank you all so much.
Sam Humphrey (43:03):
For our listeners.
If you'd like to read moreabout this topic, you can check
out John's paper South andCentral America Cut Flower
Production and Post-HarvestSurvey, which is published in
one of the open sciencepeer-reviewed journals published
by the American Society forHorticultural Science.
Links to this article and a fewmore by John Dole will be
provided in the show notes.
John also writes frequently forthe Association of Specialty
(43:25):
Cut Flower Growers, so we willinclude those links as well.
John Dole (43:31):
I'll add real quick there's another article that
details the domestic industry inthe United States and Canada.
Curt Rom (43:38):
Thank you for that information, john.
Sam, this has just beenfascinating to me and it's
timely, knowing that we'recoming up with one of the
biggest flower days of the year,with Mother's Day For our
listeners.
If this interview resonateswith you, we recommend that you
consider renewing yourmembership or joining the
(43:58):
American Society forHorticulture Science.
Undergraduate students have acomplimentary membership for the
entire time they're anundergraduate student.
Graduate students receive oneyear complimentary and then a
highly discounted membership.
But that's the way to connectto the science is to join the
American Society forHorticulture Science.
To connect to the science is tojoin the American Society for
(44:21):
Horticulture Science and thenyou can be part of the interest
groups like the FloricultureInterest Group or the
Post-Harvest Interest Group.
If you'd like information aboutthe American Society for
Horticulture Science in general,go to our website, ashsorg.
Well, sam, john, that kind ofwraps up today's episode.
Thank you both for being hereand I want to thank our
(44:43):
listeners for tuning in.
Sam, it was really great tovisit with you today and I
really enjoyed this interview.
Sam Humphrey (44:52):
Oh, I'm so excited for this spring and for cut
flowers and for our futureepisodes.
This was Samson Humphrey andKurt Rome talking about cut
flower production and we hopeyou join us again, Thank you.
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