Trial: Annual
Years Trialed: 2006
Good Qualities
Uniform flowering (2); Interesting color (4); Ease of and high germination, transplants well from plugs; Spectacular form, always gets comments from visitors; Fast to bloom; There aren’t any!; Long, straight stems; A great trial, large headed, thick stem - “I can grow celosia cristata” I say with a smile; Good holding in field and good stem length for a crop that is usually very short for us; Nice stem length, popular with florists and a well known flower; It’s a nice celosia and its great in the greenhouse but for the price of the seed, my customers really prefer ‘Chief’ celosia - I would have to charge more for the ‘Bombay’ to make money and compared to the ‘Chief’, its just not as profitable.Problems
Thick stems (3); Pale color not very attractive (3); Although it grew adjacent to other celosia that did well, this crop started off great but stalled after a few weeks in the rain (June was a very wet month) and never recovered, however, other celosia cultivars growing adjacent did well and produced nice blooms, this plant just stopped, made fat stems terminated by a flower that was an eighth to a sixteenth of and inch wide, certainly not useful even as an oddity; Our summer wasn’t hot enough for any celosias to show their full potential; Started seeds about month earlier before planting in the tunnel that is heated, the greenhouse did not seem too cold for celosia but now I believe this was the problem, causing very short plants and one flower; Crop never grew beyond 5 inches tall- seemed stunted; Field grown - head not very colorful; Looks a little sagged if left in the field too long; Should have netted to prevent stems from falling over.Similar Cultivars
Other celosia; ‘Bombay Yellow-Gold’.Trial Data
| Plants flowering (%) | Plants dead at end of summer (%) | Yield (stems/plant) | Stem Length (inches) | Market Appreciation Rating¹ | Repeat Again Rating¹ | Ease of Cultivation Rating¹ | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wholesale | Retail | Consumer | |||||||
| Average | 0.9 | 19.8 | 3.3 | 3.3 | 3.0 | 2.5 | 3.9 | 113.6 | 9.8 |
| Range of Responses | 0-1 | 7-30 | 3-4 | 3-4 | 2-5 | 1-5 | 3-5 | 36-216 | 7-14 |
¹1 to 5 scale, with 5 being the best. Market ratings are based on sales to wholesalers, retailers, or final consumers direct.
Comments
It could be the area, wasn’t impressed with this one, flowers didn’t open up and fan out, stayed compact and short!; We had grown the Bombay series in the field in past years and this year we grew them in a hoop house, much longer stems, higher quality flowers, would recommend that growers in the north grow under cover; Are there other colors? the green/yellow color was not the most popular at markets, sold for $2.50 stem at farmers market; These also dried very nicely. Note: This series of celosia was intended for greenhouse production in the Netherlands and apparently does best in uniform, controlled conditions. Hence, there was a broad range in response to the cultivar in the trials, with many growers finding it far too short and a few too tall. Note the comment by one trailer that recommended growing it under cover in the north.