Trial: Annual

Years Trialed: 2003

Good Qualities

Late fall color, very long lasting in the vase; The 5 bouquets I arranged with Red Crane sold very well, they were prettier than what I expected; Unusual; Stouter than the old red variety when in the plug trays and straighter in the field but still very short, hard to make a go when they go into the field in July; 'Red Crane' has a larger percent of usable heads than the older types; Have not harvested yet, but looks promising, similar to 'Sunset'; Beautiful healthy plants, strong stout (too stout?) stems, good tight heads, uniform plants; Similar to 'Sunset' but the head appears to be much more tight with 'Red Crane', if the head continues to tighten, this will be a very useful plants (lack of head tightness has been our problem with 'Sunset').

Problems

Cold season plant, no color in July; Insects love all plants in the cabbage family, customers do not like the cabbage scent; Have to net, not that big a deal really; We grow organically, too much insect damage, too difficult to grow; Did not plant, the - beatles and cabbage butterflies just have any Brassica for lunch because of the canola crops, they can destroy in a matter of days, you can not keep ahead of those little monsters (Zone 3); Our weather and lack of support system made our heads burst, but the side shoots were great; We don't seem to have a market for this type of plant material; No problems yet.

Comments

Similar to 'Sunset' (2); I peeled off any outside leaves that had insect holes, some heads were too large, I should have harvested sooner while they were tighter; Good for low arrangements; The time that it takes to strip the leaves is a lot of labor, we picked the leaves 5 times, most of the stems were straight, but if we had a lot of them, it would be too much labor.

Trial Data

¹1 to 5 scale, with 5 being the best. Market ratings are based on sales to wholesalers, retailers, or final consumers direct.

Supplier

American Takii 301 Natividad Rd. Salinas, CA 93906