Trial: Annual

Year Trialed: 2008

Good Qualities

Good orange color with dark disk (2); Consistent quality, healthy, smaller heads; The newer cultivars of sunflowers that keep appearing every year are an incremental improvement over the older cultivar and 'Arbel' is typical of that change, nice presentation and has a more upright appearance longer; Almost two layers of overlapping petals, good neck posture and strength; Leaves on flower head produce attractive framing, huge blooms, thick stems, sturdy plants, short plants; vigorous growth; Early bloomer, uniform flowers, clear yellow petals against dark disc; Smaller heights; Standard orange sunflower, quite tall and late; Easy to grow, orange with short petals, good flower and stem size; Nice yellow orange inner petals darker orange; Good petal count.

Problems

Flower head is too big (3), it was so heavy that the head faced down when in a vase; Kind of plain; Some irregular petal lengths; Thick stems were difficult to cut; Flowers at a pronounced right angle to stem. Designers find it difficult to work with. This variety was a poor performer for me, stems were not very stout; Heads were small; Standard orange sunflower, similar to many, I really could not distinguish between any of these cultivars, or maybe I should say the differences were more subtle than I could see-I think that they were too large, really thick stems, big heads even when direct seeded; Late to flower compared to others.

Similar Cultivars

The Sunrich series; Many; Looked a lot like the Sunbright series; Looked the same as ‘Carmel’.

Comments

Would trade Sunrich or Sunbright series for any of them; Harvested between 8/8-8/20 (direct seeded on May 28); The Agridera submissions from Gloeckner all did well; Slower than other sunflowers to produce more usable stems after a cut; Fine; 1 large head at 9-10 inches; May be day-neutral in photoperiod reaction; Flowered around August 14 (sowed June 11, transplanted to field June 25), flower diameter 8.5 in. when fully open, thick stems.

Postharvest

Keep the vase solution clean; Bleach and water; We only used plain water; Remove leaves.See separate postharvest report for results from NC State University postharvest evaluations.

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

Fred C. Gloeckner Company 600 Mamaroneck Ave. Harrison, NY 10528-1613

Agridera Seeds & Agriculture Ltd.
Gedera, Israel