“In the summer, our cyclamens, located in Fréjus, France, regularly get temperatures of around 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit). As a result, they have to cope with excessive heat from the young plant stage. When selecting our varieties, heat resistance is one of our major priorities,” says Héloïse Morel, research and communication project officer of French cyclamen breeder Morel Diffusion. This upcoming season, there are thirteen new varieties to look forward to in Morel’s trials. In this article, Morel looks back on this year and invites you to attend their upcoming production and breeding trials to see their new varieties.
Héloïse Morel
The importance of heat resistance
According to Morel, heat resistance is one of the major characteristics of Morel Diffusion’s series. “We are known for the heat resistance of our cyclamen. We make it a priority to select varieties that are naturally heat resistant from our breeding trials in Fréjus, France. At this location, it is normal for the temperature to be around 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) in the middle of summer, and when the flowers perform well here, we know that they have a strong performance and can stand the heat.”
Test of the OUTstanding varieties in Fréjus
No horticulture restrictions
“Concerning breeding and production, it has been a good year,” says Morel. The French company was fortunate, as nobody got severely ill and the restrictions stayed manageable. “In the end, very few people had to stay home. During the second lockdown, there weren’t any horticulture restrictions in France, so we were able to keep all of our staff. While our production team was complete, we took all measures to keep our employees safe. We implemented social distancing, everyone wears masks, and we put plastic screens between employees in the office. From the commercial side, we experienced only a few delivery delays throughout all of this.”
Switching to online
Due to the pandemic, the company has also had to become more online-oriented. “We are used to going to events, such as IPM or the Flower Trials in Japan, but we have been doing all of our meetings online now. It is good that we can keep in contact with our customers this way, but it is not a suitable replacement for direct contact.” Yet, Morel Diffusion is making the most of it and has organized its first webinars for growers. “We were happy to have so many attendees for our webinars. They were available in five languages and had a great number of attendees for each webinar. We were able to discuss some important topics, such as humidity in cyclamen, and our team was able to connect with our customers.”
Bisous mix
New varieties are on the way
According to Morel, there are thirteen new introductions to look forward to for the 2021-2022 season. “The INDIAKA® mix, for example, is one of our exciting new launches. This mix is of particular interest for its exceptional characteristics in terms of homogeneity in flowering and resistance outdoors. At the moment, we are the only ones to offer this type of variety in Europe.” In addition, the HALIOS® Bright Red 2012 and the minis cyclamen BISOUS® mix represent what the market is asking for. “Red is always a very important color and we are the only ones on the market to offer so many different reds in Maxi Cyclamen; there is a bigger demand on mini cyclamen, especially in the northern countries.”
Absolu de Morel
There is another new variety coming out, that is unique in Europe. “Our ABSOLU® de Morel is a mini Victoria cyclamen, which has a special shape and unique coloring, and is the first Victoria to be fragrant. We were doing pre-commercial tests at a grower in France, who is doing a special operation about perfumed cyclamen in partnership with a big garden center chain. So far, there have already been positive comments about the regularity and the fragrance.”
Come to the production and breeding trials
In order to see Morel Diffusion’s new varieties, they are inviting you to attend their production and breeding trials. The production trials are in ‘s Gravendeel, The Netherlands, on October 26-29 and November 2-5, 2021. The breeding trials will be held in Fréjus, France, on November 8-12 and November 15-19, 2021. Click here to register.
For more information
S.A.S. MOREL Diffusion
www.cyclamen.com