HAWAII POINSETTIAS

SMALLER POINSETTIA INVENTORY FOR 2006

A smaller inventory of poinsettias are available for the upcoming 2006 holiday season according to USDA, NASS, Hawaii Field Office. Based on the October 2006 poinsettia grower survey taken earlier in the month, inventory is pegged at 342,000 pots, down 22 percent from the 2005 total.

Historically, October pot inventory represents 95-98 percent of total pots set and does not take into account culling for disease and quality, combining smaller pots into hanging baskets, and other factors that may affect the actual amount reaching markets during the peak holiday season.

http://www.nass.usda.gov/hi/flower/poin.pdf

Plenty of pumpkins await Hawai’i revelers

honadvPlenty of pumpkins await Hawai’i revelers | The Honolulu Advertiser | Hawaii’s Newspaper

Something rotten is happening in pumpkin patches across the country, but that shouldn’t affect the supply of the orange orbs here this Halloween season.

Bad weather and a fungus on the Mainland have devastated pumpkin crops in the East and much of the Midwest. Pumpkin production is expected to be down between 65 percent and 75 percent, while prices are projected to be high.

But in Hawai’i, where about 70 percent of the pumpkins sold are grown at Aloun Farms in Kapolei, there should be enough to go around, and prices will be about the same as last year.

As recently as four years ago, 100 percent of the pumpkins sold in the Islands were brought in from the Mainland. Thanks to Aloun Farms, that’s down to 30 percent.

Aloun Farms anticipated a greater demand for pumpkins this year and planted 110 acres, compared with 90 acres last year.

Aloun Farms’ Alec Sou said his crop was planted after the March and April storms that damaged many crops; still, crop yield per acre is down this year.