How Your Support of AFE Can Make a Difference in the Floral Industry

Past Successes, Present Priorities, and Future Goals For over 60 years, AFE has been the leading source of funding for floral industry advances through scientific research, scholarships, internship programs, and educational grant funding for continued education for all industry members. This has been made possible through the continued support from the floral community that we serve. The future will continue to bring new challenges, and with your support, AFE can continue to expand resources and programs. As the year comes to a close, we’d like to thank our supporters for their generous contributions and share some of the impacts that your dollars have had:Advances Through Scientific Research Funding – Through working with leading floriculture researchers from universities across the U.S., AFE supports…

The Tuesday Valentine is Back in 2023! How Do I Love Thee?

Are you ready to count the ways toward a successful Valentine holiday in 2023? It’s time for a break! Will everything finally work in harmony in 2023 after the past few years of weekend holidays, supply chain disruptions, short labor, and tight inventory? With the Valentine’s holiday holding court as the first- or second-largest sales week of the year and generating 30 percent to 40 percent of the year’s total holiday dollars, it’s safe to say that a successful Valentine’s Day in 2023 will be a crucial component of organic growth across the entire industry. So how do we “count the ways” toward a successful Valentine’s Day this year? Following are five of the most important components in achieving a super-profitable Valentine’s week. 1.…

Exploring Sustainability in the Floral Industry

Sustainability. This has been the hot new word not only in the floriculture industry but also in everyday life. “Sustainable Living,” “Sustainable Products,” and “Sustainably Sourced” are common terms that are used in marketing and promotional materials. Yet, what does sustainability mean? How can we, as an industry, become more sustainable? Through a special project led and funded by American Floral Endowment, Dr. Brian Jackson and I (Dr. Melinda Knuth) have set out to discover, compile, and provide best practices for sustainability in floriculture. Our first goal is to collect, analyze, and synthesize all the relevant information related to sustainability that is relevant to floriculture or floriculture-adjacent industries. Once all this information is synthesized and distilled down, it will be…

Career Opportunities: Calling all Job Seekers!

AFE Career Center’s Resume Bank Provides Connections Between Candidates and Companies After the pandemic, the rules for finding a new job changed. Gone are the days of physically handing or mailing in your resume and waiting for a call about the position. Now, nearly all job search communications happen electronically. When you’re hunting for a new job, the biggest challenge is always knowing where to start, and that’s where the AFE Career Center is here to help. Find new opportunities today! We encourage all individuals interested in a career in the floral industry to upload their resumes to the AFE Career Center. With the Spring hiring season right around the corner, job seekers will benefit from being first in line…

Supporting Education for All Levels of the Industry, One Grant at a Time

Nineteen organizations will receive Educational Grants in 2022-23 from the Endowment, totaling $76,590 given in support of important industry programs. We welcome the opportunity to support these great organizations and their programs as they grow the industry we love. With this funding, these organizations will be able to host conferences, teach students and educators about the floral industry, offer programs such as greenhouse training and florist certification classes, promote floral sustainability practices, and more. “We are proud to support vital programs like these that strengthen the industry,” AFE Treasurer/Secretary and Education Committee Chair Greg Royer said. “We continue to work hard to uplift programs that provide learning opportunities for industry members and bring awareness to the younger generations about the…

Bring FFA to AIFD Virtual Workshop 2022 ‘Fun with Creativity’

There is an old saying that ‘if one is good, two is better!’ For five FFA Teams from across the United States, the second “Bring FFA to AIFD Virtual Workshop,” hosted by the AIFD Career Development Committee, was a day to remember. Focusing on this year’s theme of “Fun with Creativity,” Woodbury FFA (Connecticut), North Calloway FFA (Missouri), Cape Fear FFA (North Carolina), Diamond Mountain FFA (Nevada), and Chelan FFA (Washington) joined design instructors, Lisa Belisle AIFD, Lesleighan Cravens AIFD, Sharon McGukin AIFD, and Julia Marie Schmitt AIFD, on Saturday, September 24, 2022, via Zoom. Thanks to this event’s sponsors, students were able to design with tropical flowers while utilizing eco-friendly containers in unique and creative ways. The American Floral…

Inspiring and Empowering the Next Generation of the Floral Industry

Alejandra Ruelas’ Life-Changing Internship Experience at Altman Plants Internships and scholarships encourage and support the next generation of our industry. The Endowment aims to inspire the future leaders of our industry and give them hands-on experience in the field to ensure the continued growth of floriculture. One of the many opportunities provided through AFE is the Vic & Margaret Ball Intern Scholarship Program. Hear directly from one of our interns what her experience was like and how it impacted her future career goals!First, let’s share a bit about the Vic & Margaret Ball Internship – this program gives students the opportunity to gain practical floriculture/horticulture experience while training at a commercial production greenhouse or nursery. Students intern away from home for…

A Tour of Ball Horticultural Co. in West Chicago

Ball Horticultural Company’s mission is to be the world leader in the research, breeding, production, and marketing of ornamental crops. Their founder, George J. Ball’s motto was “All the Best and Nothing Else,” and it was evident that Ball puts these values to practice during our recent tour of Ball Horticultural Co. in West Chicago, which was seamlessly coordinated by Ball’s Director of Research Operations and AFE Board of Trustees member, Dr. Megan Bowman. Even though Ball is an international company that advances the industry on a global scale, it was apparent that they still keep the individual grower in mind in everything they do. Upon arriving at Ball, we were greeted by a riot of color from their display gardens…

White LEDs: A Cost-Effective Alternative to Red + Far-Red LEDs

Many important greenhouse floriculture crops are long-day plants, meaning they require long days and short nights (usually less than 8–10 hours of darkness) to produce flowers early. In areas where winters have short days and long nights, the flowering of long-day plants grown during that time is delayed or inhibited. To shorten long nights and promote flowering of long-day plants, growers can use dim photoperiodic lighting at the end of the day (day-extension lighting) or in the middle of the night (night-break or night-interruption lighting). 16-hour days created from day-extension lighting or 4 hours of night-break lighting are generally sufficient to achieve complete flowering of long-day plants.In the past decade, “flowering” LED lamps with custom light spectra including red (R)…

Executive Director, Debi Chedester, AAF Receives the John H. Walker Award

We would like to extend a warm congratulations to our Executive Director, Debi Chedester! She recently received the 2022 John H. Walker Award on Sept. 8 during the Society of American Florists 137th Annual Convention in Orlando, FL.The John H. Walker Award was established in 1979 to honor the contributions of SAF’s former long-time Executive Vice President and recognizes floral association executives for the role they play as leaders of the industry.Debi has been with AFE since 2008 and worked for the Society of American Florists before that. During her time in the industry, she has been a passionate and dedicated leader, tackling challenges head-on and always keeping the success of the industry at the forefront of her work.Through her…

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