December 2011. Good news for consumers, not so much for growers.

Leon: Last month Ed wrote most of the article about wines, so it is my time to celebrate the Christmas season. We have already done two or more articles on poinsettias, but there is a lot to say about this plant, and I like poinsettias. (Ed knows a lot more about growing poinsettias than I do, but he will correct my errors.)

I will begin with the pretty good news and move on to things that are a bit discouraging. Back in the thirties and forties the market offered a few varieties that weren’t very good and were fairly expensive. This year we will have much wider selections with colors ranging from white to purple to yellow to shades of red and some mixtures. You might want to visit the Burden Center on Essen Lane in Baton Rouge to admire the thousand plants in forty varieties that will be on display on December 2 from 8 am until noon.  The collection includes varieties that will be available to commercial growers next year, but the plants will be available for public purchase at attractive prices.

Now we should move on to the pretty good or not so good news. Poinsettias are difficult to grow because they are sensitive to fertilizer levels, day length and greenhouse temperatures—particularly if the grower expects to have plants at their peak for the Christmas season. Because of this the grower will have about five dollars invested in each good quality plant and about three dollars for each of the smaller plants. Those are actual costs, without any profit at all. Around early November, each grower is looking at market outlets and at the prices being offered.

Economic times are hard and retailers know they will need to price the plants very low if they are going to make many sales. Besides that, the retailers have to consider their own costs. Poinsettias have brittle stems and must be handled carefully. Also, the plants must be on display where customers will move them around—and break a few more stems. It seems that most retailers will consider poinsettias as loss leaders—plants that are sold below actual cost in order to get customers into the store so they will buy other items as well. This is good news for us as consumers but the wholesale prices that growers are being offered means that most of them will lose money on the crop—selling for below their cost of production. This doesn’t mean the children will go hungry. Growing greenhouse plants is a year-round business. The poinsettias will be cleared out well before Christmas, and production for spring plants will begin. That will probably yield a profit, and growers will start growing other plants as summer crops.

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