Patience is a virtue, that applies to much in life, especially for setting up new businesses. At Proflora 2019, a few weeks ago, debuting Icon Selections could finally present their company logo and varieties to the international public after several years of preparatory actions.
Jan Haaksman and Juan Felipe Gil of Icon Selections at Proflora 2019.
Icon Selections S.A.S. was established five years ago in Colombia and since then, they started introducing commercial varieties to the market. At Proflora, they showed Chrysanthemum, among others, spray varieties Yellowstone, Clarity, Airbrush and the vintage coloured disbud Linette, which also entered in the breeder’s contest. Everest, Novastar and Trinity Star were entered by the growers and admired by the visitors inspecting the submissions.
Yellowstone, Clarity and Airbrush.
Everest, Linette and Novastar.
Yellowstone is one of their bestsellers together with Testarossa, Mark Twain, and Timber, explains co-founder Jan Haaksman. On top of that, also new varieties were on display. “We also introduced little dots and mini pompon varieties, that are quite new to the Colombian growers, the US market adore them. They work very well in texture bouquets."
Strong foliage
"At Icon Selections, we focus on the quality of the foliage for all our crops and are therefore good in transit. Transport via sea container increased sharply over the last years for which strong foliage is needed.”
Breeding from scratch in Rionegro
The Icon Selections Chrysanthemum breeding is located in Rionegro, where about 90 % of Colombian chrysanthemums are grown. This area has the perfect climate for chrysanthemum flower production. Icon is the only chrysanthemum breeder in the Rionegro who is doing 100% of the breeding process at their location in Rionegro. “I think that is a good thing, because we are proud to be Colombian”, says Jan Haaksman. “The president emphasized that we need to promote domestic developed varieties.”
Icon's orange rose Clementina was also shown at Proflora.
More than chrysanthemums
Besides breeding chrysanthemums, Icon Selections also selects and commercializes chrysanthemum varieties for Fleurations, rose breeder Select Breeding, alstroemeria grower/breeder Melenhorst Alstroemeria and aster and solidago of breeder Nachtvlinder, both in the Rionegro and Bogota area.“Currently, we have 25-30 commercial varieties of chrysanthemum, roses, aster, solidago and alstroemeria."
For more information:
Icon Selections S.A.S.
Jan Haaksman
Email: jhaaksman@icon-selections.nl
T: +31646233818
Juan Felipe Gil
Email: juan.gil@icon-selections.com
T: +57304 5951407