Filipe Saldarriaga at the Proflora in Bogota, Colombia.
Environmental impact
According to Saldarriaga, the demand for more eco-friendly grown flowers is a trend among wholesalers in the United States. "More people are discovering that growing flowers demands a lot from Mother Nature and are therefore looking for products that are grown more 'environmentally friendly'. Foliages are known for the fact that they use less natural resources," says Saldarriaga. "Just like many other flowers, the Israeli Ruscus are grown inside a greenhouse, however less diseases occur, which means less use of crop protection productions. Often we can beat the disease with natural products, like garlic. Only when the diseases are very persistent, do we have to use chemicals. However, we limit the use as we inspect the plants on a weekly basis. Besides that, we are also minimizing the use of water as we installed a drip irrigation system."
The greenhouse of Greenbouquet.
Long shelf life
Shelf life plays a major role in the flower sector and increasingly more in the foliage sector. "Over the last two years, many florists that are using foliage have becaome picky regarding the quality and the shelf life of these products. As the Israeli Ruscus is a quite resistant foliage with a long shelf life, which can go up to 5 months, the demand for this variety, from the florists end, increased," he says. However, the long shelf life brings more advantages and especially for the wholesalers. "As the flower has such a long shelf life, it enables more dense packaging and transport by sea. This decreases the shipping costs of the wholesalers as they they take the bill for transport. Shipping the flowers by air takes one day and 13 days by sea. Currently, half of our production is shipped via air and the other half via sea."
The greenhouse of Greenbouquet.
GreenBouquet
Currently, GreenBouquet grows Israeli Ruscus in a 5 ha sized greenhouse in Medellin, Colombia. They are mainly shipped to the United States. In the coming years, Saldarriaga is planning to expand the greenhouse. "As we see an annual growth in demand, we are planning to increase the greenhouse with one hectare a year and use the entire land, which is 7 ha," he says.
For more information
GreenBouquet
Felipe Saldarriaga
Email: [email protected]
