Cut Flowers and Foliages

James E. Faust, John Dole, James E. Faust, John Dole

• Editorial: CAB International
• Año: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781789247626
• Categoría: Sciences biologiques
• Categoría: Horticulture

The cut flower and foliage industry is a global business with major production locations in North America, South America, Central America, East Africa, Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Australia and New Zealand. Few other horticulture crops are as ubiquitous, yet the production techniques and challenges are universal.This book describes the main international production locations and markets, including current trends and directions. The focus is on production in protected cultivation. The major species - including rose, chrysanthemum, carnation, orchid and gerbera - dominate the global market and these are individually explored in detail. Specialty species and cut foliages are also addressed, as well as significant details of production, including irrigation and fertilization, disease and disease management, and biological control of pests. Finally, the postharvest chapter covers details of harvesting, transporting and delivering high quality flowers that provide an excellent vase life.Highly illustrated with color photos throughout, this is an essential resource for students and researchers in horticulture, growers and producers, and those in the floriculture industry.

1

THE GLOBAL CUT FLOWER AND FOLIAGE MARKETPLACE

JAMES E. FAUST¹ AND JOHN M. DOLE²

¹Clemson University, Clemson, South Carolina, USA; ²North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina, USA

INTRODUCTION

Flowers play a significant role in the lives and traditions of people around the world. Across diverse cultures, the primary uses of flowers are amazingly similar: gift-giving, religious ceremony, the celebration of significant life events such as birth, marriage and death, and decorating living and work spaces with a piece of nature. The ephemeral nature of flowers and their intrinsic beauty mean they are ideally suited to communicating the importance of life, love and the transient nature of time.

For centuries, enterprising businesses have commercialized the production of flowers in every region of the world to meet the demands of the local marketplace. As globalization has encompassed the world economy, flower production has become an international, multi-billion-dollar industry. Flowers that were once solely produced on local farms surrounding population centers are now transported by air and sea across continents, allowing flower production to migrate to lands with more favorable climates and labor situations. Today, the flowers are grown on family-owned, small farms that supply local markets or they can be grown on a production unit within multinational, vertically integrated companies that supply international supermarkets. Whichever the case, the economy of flowers helps to lift the living standards of the people cultivating these lands.

The retail marketplace continues to evolve. The conventional retail florist shops strive to hold on to their market share while supermarkets offer the convenience of purchasing bouquets along with one’s groceries. Direct-to-consumer (online) marketing is gaining momentum as consumer purchasing trends evolve. Yet the market dynamics of each society is unique as cultures adapt to technological innovation and the ever-changing marketplace.

The variety of flowers available to consumers has never been larger. Breeders help to drive new enthusiasm for flowers through the development and introduction of novel colors and forms. Creative horticulturists, florists and entrepreneurs never cease to seek out and find beauty in unique flora across the globe and develop these novelties for commercial use. To the chagrin of many horticulturists, the use of dyes and paints transforms cut flowers and foliage into design components that nature never intended but to which consumers do respond.

The global cut flower industry is a dynamic and exciting environment. This chapter will describe the evolving geographical distribution of the cut flower world as well as the trends that are driving the industry in new directions and creating new opportunities for enterprising, hard-working horticulturists. All the while the industry is developing more sustainable production methods that demonstrate environmental stewardship and social responsibility to the workers that cultivate and harvest the flowers.

GEOGRAPHY OF CUT FLOWER MARKETS

Note: Production statistics throughout this chapter are primarily derived from International Association of Horticultural Producers (2019a), while import/export data are primarily extracted from International Trade Centre (2019).

Export markets

The annual global value of cut flower and foliage exports exceeds US$10 billion, and three markets account for over 90% of all imports: (i) Europe (US$5.79 billion); (ii) the USA and Canada (US$1.66 billion); and (iii) Japan (US$0.36 billion) (Fig. 1.1).

Fig. 1.1. Annual cut flower and foliage import value for the top 37 countries. (From International Trade Centre, 2019.)

These three markets dominated the world economies throughout the 20th century, and most of the cut flowers at that time were supplied by domestic growers; however, in recent decades rising labor and energy costs and improved transportation and cold-chain management systems have driven production to developing countries in equatorial regions. Today, the list of leading exporting nations is dramatically different than the past century. Five equatorial countries (Colombia, Ecuador, Kenya, Ethiopia and Malaysia) now account for 35% of world cut flower exports, and this percentage is growing annually (Fig. 1.2).

Fig. 1.2. Annual cut flower and foliage export value for the top 37 countries. (From International Trade Centre, 2019.)

It must be noted that the international trade in flowers is a complex web of logistics and relationships, so it can be difficult attributing the export and import sales numbers to the appropriate countries. For example, the sale of Kenyan flowers may be executed by a broker in Germany, arrive at a Belgian airport, be driven to the Netherlands, sold through the Dutch auction and shipped to Denmark. Ideally, Kenya would be documented as the exporter and Denmark the importer, but that may not be the case. The sale may be recorded by one or more intermediaries; thus, import and export reports should be viewed with a degree of caution. Similarly, domestic sales are not reflected in import/export numbers, so Figs 1.1 and 1.2 are not indicative of cut flower and foliage production for any given country.

The 21st century has seen many countries expand their production of cut flowers for the export market. Ten of the top 25 ranked exporters had minimal or no exports just 20 years ago (Table 1.1). Over the same time, export sales of some countries have declined significantly, e.g. Israel, South Korea, Spain and the USA. Still other countries experience ups and downs but have seen no clear growth trend in recent years, e.g. Costa Rica, Guatemala, India, Italy, Mexico, Singapore and Thailand.

Table 1.1. Cut flower export countries emerging in the 21st century. (From International Trade Centre, 2019.)

Exporting country	Cut flower export value (US$ million)			Current world ranking (2019)
	2001	2009	2019
Ethiopia	0	131	241	5
China	5	54	119	7
Malaysia	12	71	113	8
Belarus	0	0	82	10
South Africa	12	26	56	15
Poland	2	21	48	16
Taiwan	8	16	46	18
Vietnam	5	13	46	19
Turkey	8	24	36	22
Lithuania	0	27	30	24

Emerging markets

For the three main import markets in Europe, North America and Japan, per capita flower consumption is relatively flat and there is little expectation of further expansion of those mature markets. On the other hand, China is viewed as being the next big opportunity for market growth. With a population of 1.4 billion and rapid growth in personal wealth, the large exporting countries are looking to China as the driver of market expansion in the coming decades.

Domestic markets

Export values can be somewhat misleading as they do not reflect production for domestic markets. Many countries have tremendous domestic sales while their exports lag behind. The value of domestic markets is often not reported, so reliable comparisons cannot easily be made. However, some countries report their production area dedicated to cut flowers and foliage, which may or may not be differentiated. Also, production area might be broken down into field production versus protected cultivation. Production area does not easily translate into productivity, because some greenhouse production sites might be highly productive for 12 months each year, while some outdoor production areas might be highly seasonal and relatively low yielding. Nonetheless, production area values do highlight the large domestic markets that do not appear in the international trade statistics. For example, India and China report production areas that dwarf many leading export nations (Fig. 1.3). Similarly, Mexico exports only US$35 million annually while the production area occupies over 12,000 ha. In contrast, Colombia exports US$1.5 billion annually with a production area of just 7700 ha.

Fig. 1.3. Cut flower and foliage production area (ha) for the top 22 countries. (From International Association of Horticultural Producers, 2019a.)

FACTORS DRIVING THE LOCATION OF CUT FLOWER PRODUCTION

The economic development of the 21st century has brought about the continued migration of cut flower production from Europe, North America and Japan to developing countries often located in equatorial regions in South America, Africa, and Asia, thus creating a truly global marketplace for cut flowers. The locations that have proven to be successful exporters of cut flowers are driven by numerous factors that include the following.

Photoperiod

Countries located in equatorial regions benefit from having a similar photoperiod throughout the year. For short-day flowering species, such as chrysanthemums, the naturally occurring 12-h photoperiods result in flower initiation and development, while photoperiodic lighting with electric lamps is provided during periods of vegetative growth. For long-day flowering species, such as gypsophila, the natural day length results in vegetative growth, and flowering can be stimulated any month of the year by providing photoperiodic lighting. Thus, photoperiod management is much less complicated at the equator compared with higher latitudes where the photoperiod is in a state of continual fluctuation throughout the year.

Photoperiod can create advantages in the southern hemisphere where growers can compensate for their distance from the large northern hemisphere markets by being able to produce flowers of certain species during the ‘off-season’ when domestic production in the northern hemisphere is curtailed. South Africa, Australia and New Zealand have successfully used this approach for many years.

Light

Latitudes from 0 to 20° N or S experience relatively high light levels throughout the year, as described by the daily light integral (DLI) (Fig. 1.4), and cut flower growth and yield is closely tied to this measure. While wet and dry seasons cause moderate fluctuations in light levels due to cloud cover, the variation is considerably less than that in higher latitude locations, which may experience a three- to fivefold difference in DLI from winter to summer.

Fig. 1.4. Average monthly daily light integrals (DLIs) for six major cut flower production locations. Latitudes are in parentheses. (From Suntracker Technologies, 2020.)

Temperature

Cut flowers can be broadly categorized into two temperature-response groups: temperate and tropical species. Species that have evolved in temperate climates perform well in locations with moderately warm days (20–30°C) and cool to moderate nights (10–20°C). The ideal 24-h average daily temperatures are 20–24°C. Temperate-climate species include the major cut flower species such as roses, chrysanthemum, carnation and gerbera daisy as well as the ‘summer flowers’. Temperate climates usually occur at locations between 30° and 55° N or S. However, temperate climates are also available at high-elevation locations in otherwise tropical and subtropical locations between 0 and 20° N or S. Examples include: the Colombian savannah, the Pichincha region of Ecuador, the Great Rift Valley of Kenya and Ethiopia, the Central Highlands of Guatemala and the Cameron Highlands of Malaysia. The elevation in these regions is typically 1400–2700 m above sea level.

The second temperature category is the tropical species that are heat-loving plants. Tropical species require high average daily temperatures of 25–35°C to develop at a high rate. Tropical climates consist of day temperatures from 30–40°C, while night temperatur...