Production
How do I put together my berry assortment?
Hopefully they are on holiday. Or even better, enjoy the fact that everyone else is on holiday. But once again, every plant producer is wondering which berry plants, varieties and assortments to choose for next spring. Because soon the young plants will have to be ordered. At Lubera Edibles, too, young plant production is controlled according to the order history and incoming orders. Later in winter or spring, you then have to take what is still available.
Read moreBreeding progress – for what?
Why and for what does progress in breeding need to be made in plants for the home garden, especially in edible plants? Is there any advancement at all – or is it just less or more reproduction of the old, old wine being sold in new bottles? And if there are improvements, what are they focussed on and how can we sell them? These are the questions I would like to answer in this article, using raspberries as an example.
Read moreThe advantage of late potting
Even if the actual potting phase/season for soft fruit is already over in early summer, there is still the possibility of increasing the production again in the second half of the summer and filling production gaps in the event of unforeseen demand, a good market situation during the summer and good sales in late summer. Our young plant delivery window in the second half of August makes this possible. Now that the sometimes-extreme midsummer weather conditions have been overcome, it makes sense...
Read moreHow do you produce hardy Cooltropics® passion fruit plants for retail sale?
The Passiflora incarnata hybrids in the Cooltropics® series ('Eia Popeia' and 'Snowstar') are easy to cultivate and can be sold in different sizes. In fact, the climbing plants are very easy to care for and quite robust. With appropriate fertilization and watering, they grow quickly and quickly present their full splendour.
Read moreSell more and, above all, sell smarter in the face of buying reluctance and price sensitivity
In view of the darkening economy, consumers are becoming more price-sensitive. They tend to think twice about whether they really need something or can do without it. This trend is also reflected in the garden and is likely to intensify. Derived from this, however, there are also opportunities that plant producers, together with their customers, can make targeted use of.
As always, we at Lubera Edibles try to profit from the trends visible at Lubera.com; we want to learn from them. The sales at...
Read moreThe state of the soft fruit plant market
As a seller you are always in a rather uncomfortable situation. Anything you say can be used against you at any time...and it certainly will be used. By the way, this also applies to sellers of (young) plants...
How is this meant? The spoken and unspoken counter-arguments we always have ready when approached by a salesman: "He's only saying that to sell more..." In any case, with a salesperson one will always relate the truthfulness of his or her remarks to the communicative purpose...
Read moreThe Curse of the Unity Berry Plants
In the last 10 years, a product form of the berry plant has become established that looks very similar with very many suppliers: A plant in a 2l container, usually accurately tied up, with a large, more or less eye-catching label.
It is not really the individual berry plant, the individual pot that is offered, but a fixed mixed assortment on a CC Trolley. What you then find on this CC is quite often a surprise bag, certainly many raspberries, fewer blackberries, surprisingly many blueberries and...
Read moreHardy Cooltropics® passion fruit: a new fruit variety and climber for the garden
Newly available from Lubera Edibles are two hardy passion fruits: Cooltropics® Eia Popeia® and Cooltropic® Snowstar®. In the next few years, the Cooltropics® series will be expanded with many new varieties from the Lubera breeding programme. This is reason enough to ask Lubera breeder, Raphael Maier, for a presentation and classification of the new fruit variety for the northern garden. How exactly do hardy passion fruits work, how can they be produced and propagated and when is the ideal time...
Read moreThe standard berry and its alternatives
The 2 to 3 litre pot, tall and usually square, has become the standard in berry plant production. If you wander through the garden centres in the spring and analyse the offers with a gardener's eye, all you see is always the same: almost the same pot, with a slightly different but always large label, nota bene with as little information as possible. It is a well-known fact that customers cannot read. At least that's what our advertising consultants seem to think. Garden centres are no better. I...
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