New Zealand’s Outdoor Flower and Foliage Growers Association has eight out of thirty five members who grow Proteacea, generally in conjunction with other crops.
The OFFGA group meets 2-3 times per year for field trips or workshops. The most recent field trip was to visit an orchid grower, a flower exporter and an automated bouquet production line.
Proteas recently made it into the national spotlight when Jessica Cooke from Peninsula Flowers featured on our iconic Country Calendar docuseries which screens on prime time TV.
Proteacea Production & Export
Approximately 40ha of land is dedicated to Protea production in New Zealand. The production sites are widespread, from Banks Peninsula in the South Island to Kaitaia, North of Auckland.
There are around 10 growers who export Proteacea, contributing just over 1% to the total value of NZ flower exports (USD$ 20M). The main crops grown are Leucadendron, Protea Cynaroides, Protea Nerifolia, Leucospermum & Telopea.
The main export markets for New Zealand flowers are USA, Japan, Hong Kong and UAE. Product is also sent to various other Asian countries with increasing focus on China and India.
Local Market
New Zealand has three flower auctions, in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. Florists are increasingly sourcing product directly from growers. Locally there has been a high demand for what little Proteacea product is available, particularly in the King Protea Arctic Ice. A number of growers focus solely on local market as production can be more ‘organic’. There has also been an increase in the small-scale flower farm where production volumes are only sufficient to supply a few local florists.
Plant Supply
As commercial ornamental growing has decreased significantly in the past decade most nurseries have shifted focus to the retail sector. This extends to any plant breeding and importation of new varieties where the focus is more on suitability for home gardening rather than cut flower/foliage production. The New Zealand biosecurity regulations make it very difficult, time consuming and expensive to import new plant material.
R&D
R&D is very limited in the ornamental sector. There are funding grants available for research but it is a struggle to get growers to commit time & finances when required and the focus has shifted more to the food & agriculture sector. There is not a lot of liaison between commercial growers and researchers so if there have been relevant, non-industry backed academic studies the learnings seldom find application in the commercial world. In general there is a focus on decreasing/changing use of pesticides (especially with law changes both in NZ and overseas), improving soil health and being more targeted/efficient with chemical fertilisers. Most of this information is crossing over from crop and food production where there is significant R&D occurring.