Colombia battled through cold weather and heavy rainfall last month, according to Oscar Fernandez, director of sales at Equiflor. (Indeed, flooding in the country has led to more than 250 deaths and hundreds of missing and injured people.).
Meanwhile, in Ecuador “it has been unseasonably cold with only a few hours of sunlight causing production to be extremely low,” Fernandez explained.
“All production is affected in some way,” he said. “Carnations [are] going to sleep and roses can develop a stem with no flower, and that is due to cold weather and lack of luminosity,” he explained, estimating that overall production is currently down by about 30 percent.
“Production should start to increase over the next week, which is great, as we approach wedding, graduation and prom season and, of course, head in to Mother’s Day,” Fernandez said. Ecuadorian Flowers will for sure be in high demand.
In Chicago, Elena Diaz, a farm liaison in Colombia for Kennicott Brothers Company, said growers are estimating rose production is currently 25 percent to 30 percent lower than usual, but that could change quickly.
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