March fun-ness is back!

After last year’s summer one-off, the annual Golden State plant pilgrimage — the California Spring Trials (CAST) — is back to its traditional March time frame this year.

After experiencing my first CAST last year — complete with masking and social distancing mandates — I am once again excitedly gearing up for the weeklong jaunt up (or down, depending how you choose to attack it) the bucolic coast of California. I’m guessing it might be a touch bit colder with the move back to early spring, but we’ll also be able to get you all the news about the new plant varieties much, much earlier, so that’s nice.

Last year, I was admittedly a bit of a noob to the whole process with it being my first time tackling CAST. But thankfully, our Google Maps navigation app remained operable the entire week, and the fine horticulture industry leaders tasked with showing visitors around each breeding site admirably tolerated all my noob-ish questions.

I’ll try to have some better questions for you guys this time. :fingers crossed:

This year, I am once again excited to hit the road and report on all the new 2023 varieties (CAST highlights upcoming varieties for next season’s introductions) that will hopefully be moving the needle for your section growers and your customers alike.

Of course, if you’re planning on attending CAST, you’ll want to make sure you pick up next month’s issue of Greenhouse Management, which will feature our annual all-things-CAST preview in print, expertly curated by editors Chris Manning, Chris Markham and Julianne Mobilian.

We’ll also be providing nightly updates from the road via GreenhouseMag.com and our enewsletter, so if you’re not able to get away for the week sign up for all the updates here: bit.ly/GMenews.

As I type this out from my home office in Cleveland, Ohio, it’s mid-January and there’s about a foot and a half of snow blanketing everything.

Yep, a week in California sounds pretty good right about now.

Hopefully we see you out there!