Matthiola 'Katz Yellow'

Trial: Annual

Year Trialed: 2008

Good Qualities

Nice light yellow (5); Wonderful fragrance (4); The scent and the color range was great for spring bouquets; Easy to germinate and grow on to transplantable size; Blooms that were present were full and attractive, pale yellow complimented other cut flowers well; Good stem strength; Fast grower; Beautiful in spring and early summer; Very sturdy and tall stems, nice cluster of flowers.

Problems

Yellow was a bit pale, creamy looking; Flowers crinkled and leaves curly, plant appears to be diseased, not an attractive plant; Needs staking; Took too long, yield too low, about half were singles, I prefer plants with longer productivity; Planted in shade but summer temps were too hot, deer ate foliage and blooms; Plants grow well for a time but when flowering should occur they stop growing and make a stunted flower stalk that never produces a flower; Too short, did not yield well and had a very short field life, too much time and effort and valuable field space for the little it yielded; High percentage of single flowering plants; Lots of singles, weird twisting flower heads on some planted directly in the field, bad germination in plug trays about 50%.

Similar Cultivars

No; ‘Column Yellow’, which seems to have longer inflorescences than the Katz series; Similar in color to the Cheerful series but stronger stems.

Comments

This cultivar produced no blooms, very little, if any growth occurred after transplanting; Since I can get white without selecting for doubles, I'll probably skip this color in future; If all the plants were double I would grow them again, it was a waste of space for many of them were not usable; Flower head 3.5 cm; Easy to grow, didn't need support netting; I grouped these three cultivars because they all grew the same and did not produce marketable flowers.

Postharvest

Bleach/water solution; Stock definitely needs bleach or some other "cide" in the water; We only used plain water.


Trial Data

Matthiola 'Katz Yellow'
Yield (stems/plant) Stem Length (inches) Market Appreciation Rating¹ Repeat Again Rating¹ Ease of Cultivation Rating¹ Average Spacing (in2) Average Postharvest Life (days)
Wholesale Retail Consumer
Average 1.3 15.9 4.0 3.5 3.5 3.2 3.4 83 6.5
Range of Responses 1-4 10-30 4 3-4 1-5 1-5 1-5 32-216 4-9

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

Supplier

PanAmerican/Ball Seed P.O. Box 438 West Chicago, IL 60186