UMC Students Produce Poinsettia Crop
Christmas began in September for a group of five students at the University of
Minnesota, Crookston (UMC). As members of UMC’s “Commercial Floriculture Crops” class, Liz Knowlan of Forest Lake, Jennifer Jacobs of Villard, Luke Wittkop of Hugo, Sara Kohnen of Loretto, and Nate Dostert of Soudan began working with the Horticulture Department’s annual poinsettia crop at the beginning of fall semester.
Students enrolled in
UMC’s Horticulture Department offers the commercial floriculture class in order to acquaint students with producing plants for a specific date. This is a necessary skill for employment in a greenhouse or garden center operation. For seasonal plants such as poinsettias, timing is extremely important.
Seven hundred rooted cuttings from a specialized propagator arrived in early August, and these UMC students potted them during the first week of classes. The class began lighting the plants from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. immediately after potting to encourage optimum growth and to delay flowering until December.
In October the students started the process of forcing the plants to bloom in time for the Christmas holiday season. Students covered the plants at 4 p.m. and uncovered them at 8 a.m. each day, including weekends.
In addition to the more traditional red varieties, the 2003 crop includes varieties such as “Plum Pudding” and “Monet Twilight,” both of which are unusual colors for poinsettias. Most growers will grow 80-90% red, as the market demands. The class grows 300 red poinsettias and 400 of other colors so that they can experience working with the more unusual varieties. Some of the cuttings are potted singly and some are potted three to a pot.
Poinsettias form their colored “flowers” only if the length of days and nights are carefully regulated, according to Melinda McVey McCluskey, assistant professor of horticulture at UMC. “The poinsettia really doesn’t have a bloom like most flowers. Instead, the colorful red, pink, or white petals are modified leaves known as bracts. The real blooms are those small yellowish clusters in the center.”
Although the class is taught by Sue Jacobson, horticulture instructor, it really proceeds in the hands of the students. The work and production of the poinsettia crop is entirely the responsibility of the class. As instructor, Jacobson often lets problems develop to see how the students will solve them—something they’d have to do in an employment situation. The class demands hard work, dedication, and a strong team effort to grow the best poinsettias. Leadership and responsibility are two of the qualities that develop in this type of teaching and learning environment.
For Sara Kohnen and Jennifer Jacobs this year’s poinsettia growing experience was even more challenging and fun. Both had taken
“Commercial Floriculture Crops” last year and had produced a successful poinsettia crop. Instructor Jacobson said they both did very well in the class the first time and kept exceptional journals, one of the reasons she decided to invite them to be a part of this year’s production, but with a twist. Jacobson asked the two to take part in this year’s class as a special “Commercial Floriculture Studies” project. The object was for them to act as team leaders for the new class.According to Jacobson, “We scrapped some of the traditional class time and spent significantly more time in group discussion and planning; and Sara and Jenny did an experiment with graphical tracking, a method of tracking, predicting, and controlling height of poinsettias.” Based on the tracking, the grower can determine what actions—chemical growth regulators, temperature changes, etc.—to implement in order to have each poinsettia variety finish at a specified height. The two students also acted as mentors and advisors to the rest of the class.
“I believe in the constructivist theory of teaching and learning,” says Jacobson. “That is that students learn from experience. By growing the crop themselves, making all of the decisions, seeing the results, and sometimes taking counter measures, these students will never forget this course. Sara and Jenny have had a super experience in supervision and leadership as well as valuable experience for training employees in future employment situations. I’m thankful that we are small enough and flexible enough here at UMC to be able to offer this type of experience for some of our students.
The class is excellent training for a career in horticulture, now a multi-billion dollar industry in the U.S. According to the Minnesota Nursery and Landscape Association, Minnesotans spend 17 million dollars on potted flowering plants each year, and significant growth in sales and horticultural employees is forecasted in the next five years.
For more information on UMC’s horticulture program, contact the Horticulture Department at 218-281-8119, or check out UMC’s website at www.UMCrookston.edu/academics/Hort.
Posted 12/17/2003
Contact: Andrew Svec,
218-281-8435