Trial: Annual

Year Trialed: 2008

Good Qualities

Pretty orange color with a dark center (7); The head orientation, very flat and close to stem, is interesting and could be viewed favorably, single row of petals is OK but would prefer double row; Enough heads were a nice size, 5 inch diameter – not too big, maturity was uniform; The newer cultivars of sunflowers that keep appearing every year are an incremental improvement over the older cultivar and ‘Carmel’ is typical of that change – nice presentation and has a more upright appearance longer; Nice plant height, stiff short petals; Sturdy plants; Beautiful, fine and hair-like centers of blooms; These were good solid plants and bloom uniformly over a narrow window; Nice big flower (which I favor) on a stout stem, no drooping, petals were attractively ruffled and cupped for a long vase life; Nice flower head size for arrangements; Standard orange sunflower, quite tall and late; Liked relatively small size, good petal counts (more double); Easy to grow, short petals; Good flower and stem size; Good stem thickness, good plant height.

Problems

Late to flower compared with other varieties (3), latest variety in trial: 84 days from sowing; 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; Poor germination, seeds that grew did well; I planted for August harvest – July was very hot, in the upper 90’s and low 100’s following a wet June – majority of heads did not produce uniform ray flowers (presence/absence as well as length of flower petal) and the ray flowers on a disk did not open at the same time, by the time I could determine if all the rays were going to open, the disk looked old or was old, this appears to be a negative aspect of these flat oriented flowers and the slower opening of the ray flowers, the few that opened well with good ray petals were nice that I’d like to get buyer feedback on; There are so many sunflowers on the market, that I am sometimes dizzy trying to keep them all straight; About a third of the flowers were misshapen – clam shells, bald spots in the center; leaves in the middle of the flower etc., the breeders have a lot of work to do on this one before it goes to the grower, it was the last one in the group to flower and was not worth the wait, there are so many good sunflower cultivars, why fool with this dog?; Heights vary; Standard orange sunflower, similar to many, large flower, may need to be crowded more to keep small; Shortest plant; The stems were harvested at the flower opening stage and after the harvest, they never opened at all, not a desirable feature for this crop, the stems never opened, they finally wilted and died.

Similar Cultivars

Sunbright (2); Not really, due to head orientation; The Sunrich series; Looked the same as ‘Arbel’.

Comments

The Agridera submissions from Gloeckner all did well; Slightly less productive than other sunflowers in the trial, although, actually produced usable stems later into the season; Didn’t stand out much, better than several in trial, but not worth switching to on a large basis; I really liked this one although the name is a bit misleading in terms of color, would grow again; 5 in head; Harvested between 7/28-8/20 (direct seeded on May 28); Strongly short-day in photoperiod reaction.

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