Insights From Express Seed
October 21, 2009 Unlike many growers serving large retailers, our November cover operation, Green Circle Growers in Oberlin, Ohio, is very well diversified. While some growers will have as much as 80 percent of their business devoted to one retailer, Green Circle balances this with a well-rounded retail base and as a plug powerhouse serving growers through sister company Express Seed.
Express Seed was founded in 1982 by John van Wingerden and Ron Pierre to address the needs of core growers serving 80 percent of the U.S. market. One of the early innovations was selling seed by number instead of weight for more precise sowing. "Express has always been about grower solutions," says John’s son David van Wingerden, who is a manager at Express. "We take growers to the breeders to give breeders more direction. We’re not tied into our own breeding, so we can be objective. Our greenhouses also are a nice laboratory to see what the issues are and what’s happening with the varieties we grow and sell."
Trends John and David have observed include a reduction in the number of plugs and a shift to larger plugs later in the season. "Growers are transferring the time spent early in the greenhouse to plug and liner specialists," David says. "The last few years we’ve seen a shift from cheap plugs to programmable items that are consistent every time."
Heading into poinsettia season, cuttings were down. "In poinsettias, we’ve seen a large reduction in the last three years, and that’s only in cuttings," John says. "There was a serious surplus. Poinsettias are up against diversity because now there are alternatives, like cyclamen and orchids."
Another reason the volume of plugs and cuttings are down is growers have learned how to shrink their shrink. "We shrank what we throw out," John says. "As an industry, business will be tough until we adjust to numbers that are practical."
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