Trial: Annual

Years Trialed: 1997

Good Qualities

+ Resistant to mildew (2); Small flower size (2); Excellent color (2); High germination rate; Prolific bloomers; Yellows, reds, super producers; Durable plant; Nice strong stems; Beautiful; It was great. It was continually in bloom and very disease resistant. It had good vase life; Very prolific. We picked and picked and picked. Stems are very long and strong. Good market appreciation; Beautiful flower, small diameter for a Zinnia but I liked that. They didn’t overpower the arrangement; No problems.

Problems

Limited color range (2); Stem length too short, unless entire plant was harvested, or at least half of it at a time. I feel stem length might have been better if we had cut them back very hard, as it was, we only cut them hard once or twice, but they were bushier, not longer length between nodes. Difficult for us to sell in the market place; Seems to take a long time before stems got long enough on plant to pick, maybe I was too over-anxious; Cool summer-had a slow time getting going-did not bloom until mid September; Wet and cool Aug & Sept. caused mildew to appear early. Browned flowers. Flower size was not well accepted-ok in mixes; A poor performer as a field grown cut flower. This is partly due to the location of our plots this year; Powdery mildew was a big problem.

Comments

Would like a broader color range (2); This was a nice bouquet filler; Nice for dried; A very good plant. We use a lot of this in our program; Well received. Once florists get familiar with the flower, they are hooked. We would rather have the separate colors grown in last years trial. We had much more success with those as compared to the mix; Similar to ;Cut and Come Again;, but ;Oklahoma; has a better color mix and mildew resistance.

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

Benary Seed
1444 Larson St.
Sycamore, IL 60178