2018 ASHS Annual Conference

A critical component of an education in horticulture is hands-on experience growing plants. There are limited opportunities for students in the Department of Tropical Plant and Soil Sciences (TPSS) at the University of Hawaii to gain this experience, and if the opportunities available are voluntary, it can be difficult to achieve good participation from students. Multiple plant sales are held by the TPSS Graduate Student Organization (GSO) and the undergraduate Horticulture Society throughout the year for holidays such as Valentine’s Day and Christmas. In 2016, students started growing the plants instead of purchasing them from local wholesale nurseries for resale, resulting in higher quality plants and very successful plant sales. However, there is still ample opportunity to increase real world experience for horticulture students and for students to gain mentoring experience and leadership skills. Therefore, students doubled production amounts from 200 plants in 2016 to 400 plants in 2017. Additional cultivars were grown for the 2017 poinsettia sale, with three traditional poinsettia cultivars added to the four Princettia hybrids grown. A TPSS Special Topics class created in Fall 2017 to teach students about poinsettia production and marketing increased student participation in the project. Finally, a trial pre-sale at the production greenhouse facility was conducted, in addition to increased advertising and new marketing strategies. The pre-sale and regular campus sale were very successful, with 97% of the 400 plants sold. This resulted in nearly $3000 in revenue for the students to use for team building activities, social events, and travel to scientific conferences. Customers were impressed with the quality of the plants. Collaboration with the Special Topics class was worthwhile, with students participating in major production, marketing, and sales activities. Production will be further expanded for the 2018 season, with plans to add more traditional red poinsettias due to customer demand. A collaboration with a TPSS Horticultural Practices class is planned to involve more students in Fall 2018. Advertising at off-campus sites will be added to increase traffic at the greenhouse pre-sale. Finally, students gained valuable growing, marketing, leadership and mentoring skills in addition to a strong sense of pride and accomplishment. We thank Dümmen Orange, Suntory Flowers, Delilah Onofrey, Angela Mekjian, Craig Okazaki, and Ronald Matsuda for their assistance.