California Spring Trials Cancellations a Sacrifice; Customer Safety No. 1 Priority
March 18, 2020 
California Spring Trials attendees won’t be making the trek up and down the coast this year due to the event being cancelled. Breeders look forward to the quality time they spend with customers each year during the annual event.
In the floriculture industry, recent news of breeders pulling out of California Spring Trials (CAST) after the World Health Organization’s (WHO) classification of COVID-19 as a global health pandemic and California’s gathering restrictions in some of its counties has dominated industry news of late.
Breeders who have put their heart and souls into the event, as well as a significant amount of finances and plant material, now grapple with how to get the new variety information out to their customers in online formats that equate to interactions with live product and in-person education.
“We can make ads and videos all we want, but there is nothing like holding a plant in your hand and seeing the branching and the color,” says Jen Calhoun, North American Marketing Specialist at Ernst Benary of America. “It’s irreplaceable.”
The losses in time and expense for the breeding companies involved in CAST cannot be understated. Even though the event began as a true pack trials, it has gone far beyond comparing new varieties against each other. For one, the setup for CAST is a massive undertaking that breeders begin preparing for long before the holidays.
“We obviously have the expense of all the marketing material, and the actual plant grow, as well as rentals. There is also an immense number of labor hours,” says Jim Devereux, Vice President of Green Fuse Botanicals. “It is quite difficult to quantify all the purchased requirements for the show as well as time into dollars, but it [CAST] is without question our biggest expense of the year.”
Loss of Quality Customer Time Unfortunate
What breeders can’t get back is time missed with customers during CAST because the event is slower paced. While Cultivate’20 (if it isn’t cancelled) may be the next big opportunity for breeders to showcase new plants, the faster-paced, activity-packed event and mass of attendees makes it a challenge to spend individual, quality time with customers for more than short periods, which is why breeders look forward to hosting customers at their own venues and spending one-on-one time with them. Many feel keenly the loss of that time even more than the economic impact.
“More important to us than the financial portion is the lack of interaction with our customers and team members from across the pond,” Calhoun says. “CAST is one giant team-building experience between us and our customers. You just can’t replace that.”
Then there’s the timing of Cultivate in terms of plant quality. The lighting and temperatures in a convention center aren’t always conducive to displaying plants, not to mention some plants can’t be displayed at all, such as violas and pansies.
“While we completely understand and support the health of our customers and their families, the timing of COVID-19 was straight up horrible,” Devereux says. “We will push our focus to sales materials for our customers and continue to support the trial grounds throughout North America.”
Customers’ Health Irreplaceable
Despite breeders’ challenges with the current situation and the huge sacrifice it is to pull out of CAST, all agree that the safety and health of their customers is No. 1 priority.
“I feel that everybody is just overwhelmed by the whole situation,” says Sirekit Mol, Beekenkamp Plants Marketing Manager and Global Head of Product Trade. “However, the most important part is that everybody should use common sense, stay safe and healthy and look after each other.”
As we continue to receive more reactions from breeders, and they update us on their plans to get news out about their new plants, we’ll continue to update this story.
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