Aspects of the flower production
Zantedeschia (Calla lilies)
Mount Elgon Orchards Ltd. is one of the largest growers of Zantedeschia (Calla lilies) in the world with over 20 hectares of commercial plantings per season of the following varieties.
VARIETY | COLOUR |
Black Magic, Gold finger | Yellow |
Mango, Hot shot. | Orange |
Pink Persuasion, Captain Romance | Red / Purple |
Cameo, Captain Volante | Cream |
Captain Rosette | Pink / cream |
Captain Samos | Dark purple (edge) |
White Swan | White |
Hot Chocolate | Black |
Hawaii, Captain tendens | Yellow / Orange |
Majestic red | Red |
Roses
The farm projects the following rose production for 2006.
VARIETY | COLOUR | STEMS PER SEASON |
Valentino | Red | 8,000,000 |
Kiwi | Cream | 3,300,000 |
Candid Prophyta | Salmon | 2,900,000 |
Inca | Yellow / Orange | 3,500,000 |
Gypsy Curiosa | Terra Cotta | 3,300,000 |
Golden Gate | Yellow | 5,000,000 |
Swing | Pink | 3,500,000 |
Tropical Amazon | Orange | 2,200,000 |
Revue | Pink/White | 2,200,000 |
Escimo | White | 3,500,000 |
Aloha | Yellow/Orange | 1,100,000 |
Chelsea | Orange | 1,700,000 |
Dream | Pink | 1,400,000 |
Jazz | Peach | 1,000,000 |
Kiki | Ochre yellow | 900,000 |
Arifa | Red/White | 550,000 |
Olympia | Salmon/Peach | 2,000,000 |
Cream Prophyta | Cream | 2,000,000 |
Growing environment
The first roses were planted in the soil in wooden green houses. From 2001 only steel green houses have been built and in 2004 the new expansion has been planted in hydroponics.
Zantedeschia are mainly grown under shade net and plastic tunnels.
Methods of irrigation used for the crops
The farm is changing from a manually operated drip irrigation system to a central, computerized, irrigation and fertigation system
Currently 13 hectares is under computerized irrigation.
In order to guarantee enough water for irrigation during the dry season 3 large water reservoirs have been built with a capacity of 164 million liters. These reservoirs are all lined.
Pest control
The aim is to keep the use of pesticides and fungicides as low as possible through intensive scouting and quick reactions when problems are identified.
Post harvest procedures
From the moment of harvesting the hygiene, speed and temperature of all procedures are constantly monitored.
Traceability and quality control
After the process of sorting and grading a final quality control check is undertaken by a team of quality controllers who manually inspect 100% of the processed flowers.
Codes are used to provide traceability back to the individual harvester of the flowers, as well as the transporter, the grader and the person packing the flowers.
After a transport simulation a sample of each variety is put in the vase life test room for monitoring during a period of 2 weeks.
Every week new samples are taken for testing.
