Lily field inspection october 2009 Posted on 21-10-2009 at 15:23

Ref. Growing condition crop 2009 lily bulbs:

The growing conditions in Holland seem to be not so good this year for the lily bulbs, depending on the different growing areas in Holland. The temperature and sunshine were very good this summer, but the rainfall in certain main lily bulb production areas like the southern provinces of Holland is much too little. Nature has been very dry. Some growers in Limburg have irrigated their fields already for 15 times. The situation in the northern part of Holland, like in the provinces of Drenthe, Friesland and Overijssel is better, because there the rainfall until June was quite normal. The effect of artificial irrigation is always less than with natural rainfall. It is very difficult to estimate the effect of these weather conditions on the growth of the lily bulbs.

During the recent field checks, we can notice that in general the bulb growth is irregular and that the bulb size seems to be a little smaller than expected. The climate was mild with some rainfall until late in the season. However, it is already rather late in the growing season for the lilies to recover the growth back to normal. Maybe we should expect a less good crop than normal, especially for the lilies grown in the southern provinces. Recently the temperature has gone down, which is good for the natural maturing of the bulbs. This week we even had a few nights of very cold night frost in the eastern part of Holland. The growing season of the bulbs is finished and now the maturing starts.

The sales of lilies of the most popular Oriental and OT varieties are much earlier this year compared with the previous 3 years. The acreages are sometimes smaller and the demand is earlier, especially from the Asian countries. The total acreage of Orientals is reduced 6%, the actual acreage of commercial sized bulbs of Orientals might even be smaller due to the unclear registration of the blind scales, which is a new growing system for planting stock that has become very popular recently.

The lily bulb export to many countries has reduced between 15% to 25%. In Holland the number of sold flower stems of Orientals in the Dutch cut flower auctions until September 2009 is reduced 9% compared with 2008 and reduced 14% compared with the sold quantity of stems until September 2007. Although the number of stems is much reduced, the flower price on the auction is more than 10% down in 2009 compared with 2008 and almost 20% lower compared with 2007. This trend of shrinking markets and lower cut flower prices can be seen in many countries around the world.

The reasons for the earlier demand for Oriental bulbs for crop 2009 compared with crop 2007 and 2008 seems to be caused by the following reasons:  

1. Less harvest results of Dutch lily bulbs crop 2008. Therefore there was no additional availability late in the season and the popular varieties had a quick price recovery.
2. Less harvest results and shortage deliveries of lilies grown in the Southern Hemisphere due to the poor harvest results in Chile and New Zealand for crop 2009.
3. Price recovery and very specific demand for the most popular varieties and sizes from certain markets, especially in Asia.

We are glad to send you some pictures of the lily fields in the provinces Drenthe, Overijssel and Limburg, which we took recently.

We have made pictures of both of the 2 years grown fields and the normal fields, mostly the main varieties but also some new varieties like Marlon, Montezuma, Mabel, etc. Please click here to see the pictures.

We would like to invite you to contact us if you have any questions and of course your inquiries are most welcome.