Last year, five firms generously agreed to grow plants for the trials: Lakewood Greenhouse in Toledo, Dill's Greenhouse in Columbus, Barco's in Medina, Bostdorff Greenhouse in Bowling Green, and Diefenbacher's Greenhouse in Cincinnati. Each grower received rooted poinsettia cuttings from four breeders who donated plant material: Dummen USA Inc, Paul Ecke Ranch, Fischer USA Inc, and Oglevee Ltd. Each grower followed its own cultural procedures. Planting and pinching were done during a four day window. Cultivar evaluation open houses were held November 16, 17, 18, and 19 at the three grower locations. Plant height (from pot rim) was measured at each location during open houses.
Consumers also were invited to evaluate all cultivars this year. One plant per grower, per cultivar was shipped to the OSU greenhouses. This consumer evaluation was done with the help of Pi Alpha Xi. Through its annual poinsettia fundraiser sale on December 2, 3, and 4. The fraternity invited its customers to evaluate the plants in our trial. In this issue, we report the results of the consumer evaluation. It is important to note that the opinions were given by poinsettia consumers who came to buy from the students. Grower evaluations will be presented next month.
As we did with growers, we asked customers to evaluate each group of plants (cultivars) using a scale 1 - 5 (1= like the least; 5= like the most). This evaluation is presented in Table 1. In addition, after the grading we asked consumers to select 2 or 3 cultivars that they would take home, assuming the price were right. These results are presented in Table 1. Some customers selected more than two or three cultivars as instructed. In order to compare all cultivars, we divided one over the number of "selections" each cultivar received. For example, if a consumer selected 5 cultivars to take home, each cultivar received 0.2 points. On the other hand, if a consumer selected only one, that cultivar was given 1 point. Note that the two rankings do not coincide. This may be an indication that consumers are attracted to cultivars that are different and unique while others prefer the traditional look.
