Q is for Quito

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noreply@blogger.com (Mayesh International) — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 19:13:00 +0000

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Handle with Care

noreply@blogger.com (Mayesh International) — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 03:07:00 +0000

Yesterday, it rained all day throughout the sierras of Ecuador, in the flower growing areas to the north and south of Quito. It was quite cold and wet, and many people were declaring it to be the first day of winter. It was quite relief for many people, and a nice change to the blistering sun shine. However, today was hot and sunny again, although night fall witnessed some light drizzle.
The last significant shipment of roses was delivered to the airport last night, although the deliveries were slow in coming and quite large intervals between deliveries. The major orders had been completed by the farms, and the harvest is finally coming to an end.
So this is my last post to be actually written in Ecuador, although there are a few more posts to come, a post-script as it were. My days and nights have been long, and although my part in the chain is coming to an end, for many other people in the Mayesh wholesale chain the longs days are in progress, and then in turn the florists and designers will have long days until the capitulation of all our endeavors occurs with the advent of St. Valentine's Day.
This year the process seem s to have been quite smooth, given that there were many rumors about the weather in Colombia, and the early harvest in Ecuador. Probably there are effects to be felt from these occurrences, but nothing major. Flowers, as magnificent a creation as they are, are still delicate and need to be handle with care. Much like the love in our lives.

By Boat from Quito

noreply@blogger.com (Mayesh International) — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 13:56:00 +0000

Quito is a city of at least 500 years of age, founded on the site of an Incan town which in turn was probably about two hundred years old when the Spaniards arrived. The Incans selected a site that was nestled against the foothills of Pichincha mountain to the West, deep, treacherous ravines to the South and East, and to the North a long flat, fertile mesa that yielded a plentiful supply of food. This mesa, with the precipitous slopes of Pichincha blocking the West, is bordered on the other three sides with precipices that drop at least a 1000 meters to streams and rivers.
The city slowly expanded out of the original colonial city at the turn of the 20th century and in the 60's and 70's it entirely encapsulated the mesa. However, the last thirty years has witnessed an explosion of the population and buildings that has overflowed onto the slopes and own into the surrounding valleys. Today it is a modern city that embraces all that is good and bad with an explosion of the population, and the burgeoning industries, pollution, and intolerable traffic.
So I happily drive out of the city at 6:30 in the morning as a gray dawn washes across the city.
In the early morning mists, the road to Cayambe in the north twists and turns descending to the Guayabamba river some 100 meters below, and then crosses a narrow bridge and the ascends up more serpentine road, through the town of Guayabamba, and continuing on wards and upwards. At a certain point, the road breaches the canyons and bursts out on to the Altiplano, with the sun breaking free from the horizon, and streaming across the countryside.
I have the radio on pretty loud, and the white noise of distorted guitars of the opening refrain of Zombie crackle on the speakers, creating my own soundtrack to the magnificence of creation. Then the song breaks down to bass and drums before the pure vocal lament of the Cranberries' Dolores O'Riordan soars over the music:

"Another head hangs lowly, Child is slowly taken. ..

The song is poignant, and probably the antithesis of the Valentine sentiment, yet reminds us again we should love ourselves and each other, and forever put an end to violence. But as a road song, accompanying the climb up to the flower growing areas...Zombie is perfect!

By the time I reach my first appointment at 8:00am , the sun is blazing down, temperatures have already risen to 75 F and the plaintiff cries of the Zombies have given way to merengue and reggaeton.

While most of the afternoon will be spent checking roses, I have made some time to look at other aspects of the flower industry, one of which is an interesting freight forwarder whose warehouse is situated in the heart of the growing areas of Tabacundo and Cayambe. Most of the freight forwarders serving the floral industry are located in Quito near the airport. However, this company ships fresh cut flowers by boat to Holland. That's right, by boat! To Holland!! That is a twenty-two day trip from the warehouse in Ecuador to receipt by the customer

They have developed an integrated system of floral logistics from farm to customer. They receive fresh flowers from the farms in water, whereupon they are pre-cooled for at least twenty-four hours. Then the flowers are removed from the water, and the excess moisture allowed to evaporate. When the flowers are completely dry, they are packed in specially designed boxes. These boxes incorporate double thickness cardboard, with extra folds at stress points. They are also entirely stackable, which eliminates the need for a top. Each box has many strategic cut-outs to allow for unrestricted airflow throughout the entire container when it is fully loaded with flowers.

Now, these are not just any old flowers, but have been selected for characteristics of strength and endurance for this type of extended time without water. Flowers that are successfully shipped each and every week are Hypericum, Leucadendrons and Leucospermums. Successful shipments of carnations, gypsophila and chrysanthemums have been done also. Trials of roses are on-going, though these present all kinds of problems, probably the most difficult to overcome is the predilection to of roses to harbor airborne pathogens

Obviously, in a closed environment of a shipping container that is sealed for 22 days means that just a few spores of, say Botrytis, would turn the shipment into a gargantuan petrii dish.

Nonetheless, as a glimpse into the future the concept is fascinating.

This enterprise is a joint venture between Latitude 0; Neumann; and Oudendijk, a large progressive flower distributor of flowers in Holland. Oudendijk has been instrumental in the foment of floral development in South Africa and Australia, and more recently in South America.

I also visited the hypericum farm of Oudendijk, which was typically Dutch, featruring a very efficient, stream-lined operation that grows ten hectares (24 acres) of hypericum. And just one variety of hypericum, namely "Dolly Parton". Economical, efficient and very unromantic. But a pertinent reminder that this is a business.

Thereafter, I visited our supplier of callas, more on that in another post, and then back to the mission...checking roses. Then the drive back to Quito, where I would spend the evening until 11:00pm examining the arriving roses. While I check flowers at the farm, I need to review the boxes again, as what I was shown at the farm is not necessarily what is shipped to the airport.

Fortunately at this stage of the harvest everything is fresh, but I keep a vigilant watch for hydration issues. Also, I need to check that the farms do not cut the flowers too tight, as their harvest comes to an end.

Too tired to even wrire my blog, I crawl under the covers ans fall into a deep sleep.

New Rose Gallery

noreply@blogger.com (Mayesh International) — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 02:43:00 +0000

Some new, new rose varieties you can expect to see between this summer and the next. One of the hot trends amongst breeders is that of fragrance in the roses, and I believe that we will experience a renaissance of delicious and delightfully perfumed blooms over the coming years.
The other is the introduction of large roses, with high petal counts and strong rosettes, often cupped, such as Finess and Hearts.

At Flores Verdes they have recently started production of Orange Intuition, an addition to the "Intuition" series. In my opinion it is the best of the three, featuring distinct striations of orange, salmon and white. The rose still does not reflex fully, but the aperture obtained in a vase is eye-catching.

At Pambaflor, a farm we recently started doing business with they had on display this new and rather attractibe deep lavender rose called Opus.

Finally a strong vigorous yellow rose with an impressive perfume that has hints of lemon in deep tones of tea. Very pleasing aroma, it also opens to a rich, exuberant yellow. Clearly, if the breeders hew to this trend of producing fragrant hybrid tea roses, they will soon replace the rather weak garden roses.

A new hybrid tea from the breeder SPEK which is under trial at Pambaflor. This features an alluring sweet strawberries-and-cream scent with overtones of peach perfume. It is very strong, with good vase life. The rose has no name as yet, but it is sure to be a hit, as it travels well and disease resistant.

An interesting rose under trial at Agrirose, features high petal count and large head-size. It is an ivory-beige color with antique carmine mottling on the margins ot the petals. This rose is still a code but is similar to a Double Delight on steroids.

Ginette, a new large headed rose with clean, lilac color features a high petal count in a deep rosette. Excellent vase life. Modest amounts will be introduced in late summer.

Enjoy! Any questions, please ask your Mayesh sales representative.

Thursday Night Insight

noreply@blogger.com (Mayesh International) — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 02:16:00 +0000

Well the rumor mill is churning here in Quito: On the one hand there are many people who are saying that there are few flowers left to harvest, especially the bouquet companies, and maybe their farms have finished up a little early (translation - their flowers are already threading their way through a logistics chain). On the other hand all my travels; today, yesterday and Tuesday have shown me that the opposite is true. I believe that there are large amounts to be cut and processed over the next five days or so. Now, there is no more red to be found unless it was pre-booked, but our buyer has the situation well in hand, and we expect that this weekend, should the demand warrant, that we will be able to locate more red.
One of sources of this information is the Ecuadorian growers association "Expoflores" which is hard to understand as more flights are being added to go to Miami on Friday and Saturday. This is due to an increased demand for cargo space, a fact which belies what Expoflores is saying.
I just got out of the coolers for a quick break from the frigid temperatures where the farm shipments are rolling in smoothly, one after the other, and the flowers are looking great.
Tonight is the peak night for shipments going to wholesalers in the USA such as ourselves and we will probably have large shipments through Sunday, although the size drops a little each day from here on out.

To Love and Be Loved

noreply@blogger.com (Mayesh International) — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 14:21:00 +0000

Yesterday was long, drawn out and hot. I walked several farms, and was wilting much of the time. One of the technicians at a farm that I visited suggested that the incredible temperatures combined with the extremely high UV was affecting the ability of the rose plants to correctly draw water, which could affect the ability of the cut roses to hydrate efficiently. Also, another phenomenon, which I described in my hydrating guidelines I mailed out prior to leaving fro Ecuador, is that which was dramatically termed "thermal shock" by the technician. This occurs when the hot flowers come in from the field and are placed in the (relatively) cool water of the post-harvest reception area.
Nonetheless, as I pointed out to several farm managers this is still a flaw, and not acceptable (however understandable) especially when the prices are this high. I have done my best to intercept these roses, and much to the chagrin of our rose buyer, have sent some hundred boxes, mostly Freedoms, back to the farms.
All the roses are very fresh, but it is essential that all roses are properly hydrated and stabilised by the client prior to use in arrangements and so forth.
Walking around the greenhouses, I observed something I had never seen before in a rose plantation, which was that there were plants wilting from the intense heat and extreme UV levels, even though they were fully irrigated. The ability of some plants, especially those in the center of the greenhouse, away from the vents, to raise water and transpire is simply compromised in this very rare occurrence.
One farm that visited had finished their harvest for Valentine's and I have heard of quite a few others in the same predicament. But all the rest that I have personally seen with my own eyes have plenty of production coming into the post-harvest.
As well as reviewing Mayesh's V-Day shipments I also had time to see some new roses and trials, of which I will post a gallery soon.
The picture prefacing this post is from the town of Pastocalle, where two of our suppliers are located. They are part of a very touching mural on the walls of the parochial school and I though quite in keeping with our Valentine's theme. The words on the right can be translated thus: "The right to love and be loved"!
Many of us are fortunate enough to be able to give and receive love, but we ought not forget that many people in the world know very little of love, or being loved. And the gift of flowers should not be cynically dismissed as a superficial gift that dies, but rather serve to illustrate the fact that, just as flowers are so fragile and so delicate, so is the nature of love.
Somewhat light-headed and a long day in the country under my belt I head to the cargo agent's coolers to prepare for the inspections of the boxes arriving from the farms. This turns out to be long and tedious, as the trucks trickle in one at a time, the last one arriving at 1:00am. The roses look beautiful, with the slightly moist bloom on the red petals reflecting the light like the richest deep burgundy velvet. There are wonderful colored roses, fragrant garden roses, as well glorious lilies and hypericum in a wide array of colors.
In fact out of the almost five hundred full boxes, I only had to send back some 12 fulls. With the trailers loaded, and on their way to the airport, I head to the hotel and the beckoning comfort of the bed.

Weather report

noreply@blogger.com (Mayesh International) — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 23:38:00 +0000

A brief weather report: As you most probably have gathered the sun is blazing in the Altiplano surrounding Quito, Ecuador. Today UV strength was reported as being 17, and a warning issued to stay inside if at all possible. Winds are blowing, with very intense gusts and greenhouses all over the Sierra are having some kind of problem, from ripped plastic, or sections of the greenhouse being blown away, to trees falling and windbreaks collapsing.

Even with the sunblock, one can feel the ultra-violet rays on the skin, and although it was somewhat cloudy in the morning the climate has been intensely hot all day long.

Chalk it up to Global Warming, El Nino or the economy...extreme weather changes are affecting every walk of life, and having an impact on rose production.

Cold, colder, coldest

noreply@blogger.com (Mayesh International) — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 12:52:00 +0000

I spent last night in the coolers of our freight forwarder in Quito, checking the roses as they arrived from the farms. It is extremely cold in there, and can be very uncomfortable if you do not have appropriate attire. When I was much younger I would wear a jacket and a sweat shirt, and grin and bear it. Somewhat older and wiser, I am covered from head-to-toe in clothing deigned for the work in coolers.
Happily the farms delivered the roses as ordered, and in a timely fashion. Weather is a huge factor in enabling farms to pick, pack and ship the flowers expeditiously, whereas when it is cold and overcast, roses are harvested when they are too tight, they are packed at the last minute and generally delays creep into the system.
I did have to send back a few boxes, but very minimal amounts as a percentage of the overall volume. The inspections took about five hours but by 11:00pm we were able to dispatch the trailers to the airport for delivery to the airline. Mayesh only uses UPS, and it is into their coolers that the flowers are unloaded. At around 2am the flower boxes have all been loaded onto pallets each holding about 100 boxes and weighing one ton. We shipped out five skids last night.
This morning the flowers will be loaded into the UPS cargo jet that arrives from Miami, which is back in the air about one hour and a half after arriving in Quito.

Overall, I very happy with the first major load to be dispatched to the USA, particularly as the overall quality is high, the cutting points are being maintained correctly, and there is a beautiful selection of rose varieties that we can offer for sale.
This morning I am visiting farms in the south, including one that grows garden roses, and I will learn more about how this Valentine's will unfold.

Hello, Sunshine

noreply@blogger.com (Mayesh International) — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 23:18:00 +0000

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.

So, its back to Quito to check the flowersw comoing in from the farms....

Love is...

noreply@blogger.com (Mayesh International) — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 12:24:00 +0000

Its another year and yet another Valentine's Day is upon us. I flew into Quito last night, whereupon I picked up my car rental and drove directly to the freight forwarder's coolers where all the flowers are received, palletized, checked and labelled ready for the next morning's flight. The coolers were a hive of activity, with thousands of boxes being unloaded from trucks, counted and then placed on pallets. Pallet jack operators maneuvered the loads though the coolers, in a precarious dance of pirouettes and glides, like whirling dervishes, just missing each other as they located the pallets in the right place.
Mayesh did not have a large load, but nevertheless I reviewed the roses tendered by the growers, and while most were up to standard, some were returned to the farms for being "dehydrated", which is the PC way to suggest that maybe they could be a little old.
Exhausted, I got back to my room around 12:30 am. I unpacked my case and got a massive emotional lift from a note my girlfriend had placed amongst my clothes, that simply stated; "I love you".
That's what Valentine's Day is all about.

Welcome

noreply@blogger.com (Mayesh International) — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 17:08:00 +0000

Welcome to Mayesh Wholesale Florists 2010 Valentine's Day Blog.