Q is for Quito: Hello, Sunshine

February 2nd 2010
If you have stumbled upon this blog by accident, or are reading for the first time, I will preface this post with a brief overview of its origins.
For about fifteen years or so, I have been coming to Ecuador to monitor the Valentine's Day rose harvest. The first few years featured many colorful anecdotes consistent with a banana republic, but Ecuador has developed immensely and today is a fairly cohesive democracy with many Latin idiosyncrasies. Back in the day, we had to fight to get airline space, cajole enough red from the growers and still be hamstrung by the vagaries of the weather, always wondering if the flowers would be early or late, too open or too tight. And that is how I came to be inspecting them; essentially to limit the quantity of bad, poorly grown roses from leaving the country and wasting precious resources. The volume of boxes is such that the best I can hope to achieve is one akin to a police presence, the deterrence being in the fact that I am in Ecuador checking random boxes. Oh yes, and I do reject a few hundred boxes each year.
I perform this task as a service to our end user, our highly esteemed clientele, in an effort to ensure the best Valentine's possible.

So for the next week or so I will be posting daily at this site, so please join me to learn about the rose harvest, as well as some of the idiosyncrasies of colorful Ecuador.

Today, since about 8:00 am the sun has been blazing in the sky, baking the high Altiplano of the Andes. This incandescent orb, called "Inti" by the Indians traced its inevitable parabolic arc to the West in the deep azure sky, graced by an occasional cloud which looks uncomfortably out of place. I spent the day visiting farms, walking in greenhouses, checking the bunches of roses, looking in coolers - and lingering there in the cool moist air I might add - and assessing the harvest. My conclusion after visiting four extremely well known farms that produce premium quality and a few lesser lights, is that the weather has conspired to create the perfect climate to grow roses. Now, this is my first reaction, and I need to visit more farms tomorrow, but it looks as though there will be a very good harvest of premium roses in Ecuador.

The caveat is that the increased production is a rather more a result of the superb weather, and rather than from a planned Valentine's Day pinch. To be sure there are farms that executed a pinch of reds and some colors, but overall, I would say that premium red roses will be in short supply, while I expect there to be an abundance of colors. On this I will elaborate more tomorrow after I visit the farms to the South of Quito.I spent some time at Greenrose, one of our premium suppliers, and a name recognised throughout the USA. As you can see the sun was in full effect, and by the time I got back to Quito, I had a pretty good burn starting on my face. Its gonna be SP30 tomorrow! The pictures in this post were taken at Greenrose, starting with one of Sergio Illesca, head of sales and myself under the massive skies.As you can see the coolers have a healthy amount of flowers, but it will be empty by nightfall.

Also note the production lines full of flowers and the ladies busy at work, but note also the smiles which are a sign that the pressure is not overwhelming. Greenrose only executed a light pinch, and most of the increased production comes from the warm temperatures and brilliant luminosity.