published in the Floraculture international-april 2010
We are now proud to be members of the Association of Specialty Cut Flowers Growers. An association based in the United States.

“so why would you want to join an organization that is half way around the globe”

you may ask, well the answer is really very simple. Read their mission statement and if like us it makes sense then the picture is clear.

To unite and inform growers in the production and marketing of field and greenhouse cut flowers. We provide information on growing techniques, marketing strategies, and new development in the industry that you won't find anywhere else.

The association was found by Allan Armitage and Judy Laushman, today there are almost 600 members, 33 outside the U.S.

We asked Judy what are they most proud of, “ First, that we've outlasted other, larger, richer organizations! But mainly, knowing that the ASCFG has created this network of growers who are incredibly generous to each other, who otherwise would have never met, never shared the knowledge and experience they all have, from all over the U.S. and beyond. I'm very proud of our magazine; the content is unique and the quality is unsurpassed.

And I have to agree. If you log on their website you can see pictures of the different members. farmers, researchers,markets, etc. The bulletin board and it is very exciting and unbeliavably active with hundreds of bulletins.

Here are just 2 examples

Joseph P. Schmitt (Jschmitt) Seems some new items need to be around awhile to catch
on. I think sometimes we suffer from the super-mega-mart problem of
too many choices. That and the need for customers to develop a history
of vaseworthiness (if I may coin a word here).

Laurie Hodges This year I bought the gro-morent wand seeder and also the hand
vibrating seeder. The wand seeder worked great on 288 cell trays for
pelleted lisianthus and raw snapdragon seed. We resorted to tweezers
for raw lisianthus seed because there were only 100 seeds per variety.
Reaserch is a big thing here they have a research foundation and committee with plant trials and on farm research.Once a year they publish the outocomes..beleive me this is as good as if not better than the pack trials we are used to..simply because there is no “hidden agendas”

Judy comments on this “Only a few academics are able to conduct research on specialty cut flowers. They are doing what they can, but their research dollars are pennies compared to other areas of floriculture.

I wanted to know what is the biggest challenge for the assocoation these days. “I don't know if it's the biggest, but as we move to more electronic communications and many of our growers are still using dialup connections or otherwise unable or unwilling to get online consistently, it's hard to serve everyone as completely as we know is possible.” says Judy

I am proud to be a member and who knows maybe one of these days I will write from their national convention

After 30 years of devoting myself to my family,farm ,friends,and the community I am heading a new way. MUSIC: The Desert Coolers check us out on you tube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhIuKqt_9iw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lwxqf8ymQLs

Eyal Policar

Create Your Badge

We have joined and are now members of the Association of Specialty Cut Flower Growers.
This is an American association, which we are proud to be members of. We would
like to introduce our new and exciting flowers and varities and visa versa. We will be more than happy to be exposes to new ideas from its' members

we are re-doing our web site so untill we are finished you can see what is available and contact us for a quote on price. Dont forget to tell us where you are and what quantities you are looking for

      

With the internet so readily available, in most parts of the world, and with so many options this media brings with it, if you have a few minutes to spare why not play the google game

 Really very simple, think of something, or someone, and google it. (search for it on google). The first piece of info you get is how many pages google found an entry with that same name, then on the left (or right side) you get info from companies that paid google in the hope that you would click them first, and then you get the whole list.

I started with my name Leaora..so what do I find?  Thinkbabynames.Com, here is what they have to say
Leaora \le(o)-ra\ is pronounced lee-OR-ah. It is of Greek origin, and its meaning is "compassion; light". Now that explains why I love greek salad.. I found a Leaora at  the Department of Corrections in Washington State, seems like there are a lot of Leaora's in the real estate business, and in April a Leaora is registered for a car race, but by far the best is Leaora in vampirefreaks.com, When I searched my surname Policar, the first thing google asked me maybe I meant Police…no I didn’t. The first site I got was in Italian. Policar.info a site dedicated to slot cars-that's toy's racing cars, that were around in the 60's and 70's. Hey they even have a Policar mini. Then I found  ‎Captain Darrin Policar, the Pirate of Geneseo, hmm  mean I married into a pirate family? When I Googled  my kids name things happened. I found dancers, genome researcher, cosmic navigator and a symphony director, when I searched  Gahl my oldest son. Under Aylah I was immediately taken to a site called chinease-tools.com and the name was miraculously transformed to Chinese characters. For my youngest Timna lots of stuff about Timna park the place where king Solomon mined copper.
I couldn't help myself I just had to try Anabel. So here goes. Did you know that according to wikopedia  it's a Spanish version of Annabel. You have the anabel comics, songs on you tube, hotels, and even a vegetarian dish at the anabel taylor restaurant. You have rugs, tennis players, artists, an escort service, a smart phone company in Nigeria, and they are looking for engineers in anabel Missouri.. The strangest thing I found was anabelassociates.com you have the anabel team 2 funny people dressed as cooks and what do they do? Cook? no no these people translate from English to French.??

So next time you have a bit of time to spare try this game

Leaora

This appeard in the Floraculture magazine this month

"It's tough to make a prediction especially about the Future"

Yogi Berra the legendary baseball coach.

I read this excerpt in "the black swan" a book by Nassim Nicholas Taleb.
So if we can't really predict the future and the past is not always the best teacher
 then lets talk about the present.
Wouldn’t it be great if we could listen to a radio station that carries what we are interested in..
Imagine listening to people in our world talking about things that interest us,
maybe it would be aboutA new pesticide or a better way to treat a pestering
disease we are having. Maybe it couldbe about an improved way to grow the same crop
we are growing, or a warning that a certaincultivar is not performing as good as in the past.
 It would be great to hear breeders, and growersIn different places in the world explaining to us
what their agenda is all about.Is it possible that somewhere far away for me of course
there is someone doing something that isof interest to me. Who knows maybe I am doing
 something that could be a solution for someone's problem?This radio could have a question
 and answer session where growers can ask questions and get thebest possible answers.
A weekly expert hour where an expert will be interviewed, with listners able to join in.
Of course this could be a platform for
 all those companies that want to sell us their goods.
They would pay for advertisements.Add a daily market cap with the prices at the leading
 markets top this off with the weatheredition, some good music have it running on the
 internet.News breaking alerts that effect us and our business. Have a local hour to
broadcast locallyin the relevant language, will do just great. If you ask me it should be
 part of the Floraculture team.

Call it The  Floraculture international radio station.
now ther's an idea

This article appeared in the floraculture international nov issue.

   
      It has been a very tense and strenuous economic month. Now I don’t understand that much about world economics but reading the papers looking at different television stations both our local, European and American TV stations and it makes you wonder.

I have no doubt that what we are seeing today and how history will remember this are to different things.

     My heart goes out first and foremost to the thousands of people who lost their jobs in these big companies like Leman brothers or some of those mortgage banks. To those whose jobs have become insecure because their companies may not be able to get loans to keeps the business going. To the people whose savings have been slashed and those who may find themselves not able to pay the mortgages and their houses foreclosed.

     I can't help but wonder who these fools that are running these finances. Or maybe they are no fools at all just greedy. The heads of these companies receiving salaries and bonuses in the millions and caring very little for anyone or anything else. I wonder if any of them will pay the price for their incompetence.

     As for the politicians my opinion as usual is very mixed up. Here you have a president in the states sending an emergency bill to congress that doesn’t approve it, 2 presidential candidates that explain how righteous they are and how wicked the other is. Then more politicking and its approved. In Europe it seems the leaders are much more professional.

They didn’t wait, they meet, and they put an immediate plan and work hard to restore confidence. Buying banks, bailing out companies, guaranteeing home owners and citizen's savings.

     In our country thank god the pressures are very low. Actually god had very little to do with it. Here we are a nation of people that save. Statistics show that people here will put away up to 20% of their yearly earnings. Although we love to live well people won't go on vacations or buy new cars not to mention houses unless they are pretty sure they can afford it. The same nasty government that tries to regulate my farm, my workers, my earnings my healthcare and even my way of life, regulates the banks the insurance companies, and the loan exchanges.

Not that the banks probably don’t give out bad loans but it’s a limited situation.

 So this time around I cheer the regulators. There is no need for our government to bail out any company or even send an emergency package to market. We have a different problem.

Since our economy is stable it attracts foreign investors sending our shekel up and the euro and $ down. As exporters we receive less and less local currency for our flowers and that is a very big headache for us.

     Going back to world economics I have no doubt the world will go green again very soon but until that happens a world slump is always very bad for our markets. We may have to prepare ourselves for a slow and tedious season.


ep

This article appeard in the june issue of floracultureinternational.
It was a prelude to the euro 2008 football championships
For those intrested it was Spain who won this year's championship

Our industry affects all walks of life. Think about it, when we visit a hospital, if conditions allow, we take flowers. To the mother of the new born baby, or to someone who just had surgery. You can also find nice flower arrangements at weddings and at social occasions of all sorts, whether it’s a family do, a reunion, or just an informal dinner with friends. We love to give someone a nice plant when they move to a new place or have refurnished their old place. Of course in times of upheaval, such as the passing away of a loved one or in commemorating our fallen soldiers we will also see flowers.

There are countries that have a national flower; there are states, provinces, cities and even local areas that have flowers as an emblem. In the office, at the restaurant, in the shops, in our living room, in gardens, our industry is always there, admit it there is no other industry that has such a huge presence in our everyday life; except for food maybe, but food is all about existence, flowers are all about emotions.

So why not sports? Why not have a flower with the same colour as our favourite sports team. Why not have the fans buying “their” flower and proudly displaying it at home or at the workplace, whether it’s in the office or in the truck, or wherever their work is based. Why not sell the flower in a sleeve with the logo of the team on it or on the pot of the pot plant. These days you can even print the logo on the flower itself. This market is huge, everybody has a favourite team, there are hundreds of teams in all different categories of sport, in football, basketball, hockey, volleyball, bowling, gymnastics, golf, handball... wow! The list is never-ending. You have national teams and local teams, regional championships, every college and university has teams, little league and the old-timers’ league. Imagine each one of these teams adopting a flower or pot plant that is the colour of their team.

You have teams whose colours will be very easy to fit with a flower, and of course you have teams whose colours will be a bit more challenging. Everybody can win from such a situation. The farmers and nurseries will be able to get a better price for this captured audience type market. The owners of the team will receive royalties for the use of their emblem. Wholesalers will have a very nice niche market and the fans will always appreciate having the “right colour” flowers in their home.

The flowers of course should not be sold at the sports arena or during the competition, since fans will probably end up throwing the flowers at either the players or in the arena and that will only create a mess and very soon it will cause anger among the authorities. The flowers should remain proudly displayed in the fans home or workplace.
ep