A new rose by De Ruiter is hitting the market: the Shamita. All in all, it took six years to develop the variety, and it was only named and became commercial this year. The light pink flower is named Shamita, which means peacemaker in Hindi, and was crossbred at De Ruiter East Africa Ltd., where the planting material for the rose is now supplied.
To already get acquainted with the Shamita, three farms in Kenya talked about their experience with its production, as well as their expectations for the flower.
Rob Letcher en Rohit Patil
Vijay Bhosale, General manager at Nini Ltd.
“We are relatively new to the production, but so far, it looks very promising. We believe this variety can compete with the other highly productive varieties in its range, and it grows even faster than some others. At an altitude of 1800 meters, we see around 240 – 250 stems in all our intermediate varieties, and so far, it looks like the Shamita can easily compete. Thanks to its compact head size, it is also a great variety for sea export as this reduces damage during transport. And given that we ship flowers from Kenya to Europe, this is important for us to look at.”
Ghanshyam Dusang, General manager at Everflora Ltd.
“We run the testing in our place. At our altitude of 1680 meters, we’re getting about a 4.5 cm head size. The color is very nice, between light pink and cherry. The bloom opens very well, has a great number of strong petals, and a stem length of 40 to 60 cm. The flowers are in very high production already with 3 to 4 sprouts.”
Fred Okinda, Farm manager at De Ruiter East Africa Ltd.
“The development took seven years but was well worth the wait. It is a versatile variety that can be grown at every altitude and has good production. The rose has a beautiful, stable pink color and is easy to grow. At lower altitudes, the rose achieves 270 stems per square meter per year. At 1900 meters above sea level, this is a minimum of 214 stems per square meter per year. The roses are easy to pack and ship thanks to their straight stems (90% of production has a stem length of over 50 centimeters), shape, and large head size (between 4.5 to 6 cm depending on the altitude). The rose also fares well in cold storage, is tolerant to botrytis, and has a vase life of two weeks.”
A reoccurring theme in the above-given statements is that altitude greatly influences the production of roses. In terms of head size, it seems that the greater the altitude, the greater the head size. But as Fred Okinda explained, it also influences the stems per square meter in production.
Whether or not the Shamita will manage to live up to its name remains to be seen, but so far, things are looking promising.
For more information:
Rohit Patil
De Ruiter East Africa Ltd.
P.O. Box 687
20117 Naivasha, Kenya
Tel.: +254 798 502 673
Email: rohit.patil@deruiter.com
https://deruiter.com/nl/
Fred Okinda
De Ruiter East Africa Ltd.
Tel.: +254722579204
Email: Fred.okinda@deruiter.com
Ghanshyam Dusang
Everflora Ltd.
Tel.: +254721638005
Email: manager1@everflora.co.ke
Vijay Bhosale
Nini Ltd.
Tel.: +254702662297
Email: vijay.bhosale@herburgroses.nl