L
ast week The Carnation Week in Colombia took place. It is an initiative of eight carnation breeding companies to show their new varieties and innovations in the Dianthus species. The event was coordinated by the Center for Innovation of Colombian Floriculture, Ceniflores, and with the support of Asocolflores and ProColombia.
Carnations in Colombia
In Colombia, there are around 900 ha of carnations mostly around the Savanah of Bogota. From the USD 1500m total fresh cut flower industry in Colombia USD 225m are in carnations. Exports are primarily to USA, Japan, Holland and Spain.
Eight breeders join forces
From the 24th through the 28th of February Colombian carnation growers, international buyers and experts in the floral design and event planners had the opportunity to visit 8 different open houses.
The 2020 edition is the first time that the breeders come together and plan their blooms for the same week.
The following breeders opened their doors:
• Breier Cross - Israel
• Danziger - Israel
• Dümmen Orange - Holland
• Hilverda Kooij - Holland
• Propagar Plantas - Colombia
• Santamaría - Italy
• SB Talee - Colombia
• Selecta – Germany
By joining forces to organize this week, the breeders helped to bring the industry altogether at the same time and allow the carnation to have a special space.
More than 100 varieties
During week 9, the 8 breeders have shown more than 100 new varieties focusing in the diversity of this species considering that the carnation flowers has many attributes that makes it a very interesting one, including price, diversity, travel and vase life.
400 visitors
Around 400 visitors were delighted in the open houses where breeders had the opportunity to show their commercial varieties, their new introductions and their phase 3 or 4 varieties (codes) for next year introduction.
Cocktail with lectures
Asocolflores, The Colombian Association of Flower Exporters in its role to keep creating inspiring experiences around the world with 'Flowers of Colombia', was invited to a cocktail in the middle of the week to create a networking space and provided the attendees with three interesting lectures.
Augusto Solano
Augusto Solano, Asocolflores president, started it with an economic perspective of the carnation for the coming years, as main speaker the President of ProColombia, Flavia Santoro, followed by Juliana Bustillo CEO of ORA, The Floral Agency spoke about the new trends in floral design including what is and what is not the carnation in the floral art around the world and Mario Huertas from MSH Consulting Group gave a speech on how to promote the carnation to buyers and consumers from a neuromarketing perspective. The event finished with some bites and drinks making the networking between the different actors happen.
Flavia Santoro
Juliana Bustillo
Mario Huertas
More pictures of the event:
Flavia Santoro and Augusto Solano
