Taking stock

Spring and summer plants have long been (deeply) discounted, and most of the fall stock has passed through your greenhouse doors and is now a distant memory until we cycle back around to fall production next year.

Fall — and the quick breather it provides — represents the perfect time for a respite from the madness of the production cycle, and to take stock of where we’ve been and where we’re headed. It’s also when a lot of horticultural businesses start planning for the next growing season.

In this issue, you’ll find the start of our annual State of the Industry (SOI) report (https://bit.ly/soi-2021). We queried over 100 North American greenhouse owners and operators to get their take on how the last year in horticulture played out and what to expect for next year.

What did they tell us?

Well, I don’t want to spoil it here for you. You’ll just have to read the full report and find out for yourself. But, generally speaking, I think it’s safe to say that the overall state of the horticulture industry as it stands today, is quite strong.

Of course, that doesn’t mean we can take the winter off and rest on all our laurels. There’s still work to be done, as our cover story (https://bit.ly/diverse-perspectives) on the young, all-woman management team at e-commerce powerhouse The Growers Exchange clearly shows.

The SOI data also shows some issues we’ll need to manage through in 2022, including the ever-worsening supply chain difficulties that we’re all saddled with for the time being. I hope you’ve already ordered or picked up your Thanksgiving turkey, because if you believe the tea leaves, those tasty gobblers could be in short supply just as perlite and plastic pots were in 2021.

It’s our hope as a media brand that our SOI efforts will help you plan better and have a third-consecutive wonderful growing season in the months ahead.

Let us know what you think of the SOI by emailing your thoughts over to me at mgrassi@gie.net. We’re open to all new ideas on how we can make this data even more useful to growers.

Thanks, and enjoy the downtime this winter. We’ll be right back into production before you know it!