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- Author or Editor: W. Timothy Rhodus x
- HortScience x
Abstract
A controlled pricing experiment was conducted in three rural and three urban supermarkets as a means of identifying consumer preferences for fresh flower bouquets. Impacts on consumer demand due to type of bouquet, location of store, day of week, and selling price were analyzed. Rural and urban consumers were found to exhibit different preferences for bouquets. Sales patterns throughout the week exhibited slack sales on Monday through Thursday, followed by a sharp increase on Friday through Sunday. Consumer demand for bouquets can be characterized as price-elastic.
A survey of bachelor degree programs in the United States indicated that horticultural enrollment declined 4.4% between 1986 and 1988. Programs that increased enrollment (39% of those responding) were more likely to use various recruitment materials and activities than were those with declining or no change in enrollment (48% and 13%, respectively). Supply of students and time required to recruit were most often reported as high priority issues. The percentage of new majors recently graduated from high school had declined in 43% of the programs, but increases were reported in students age 22 and above, no prior horticultural experience, and interested in a part-time program. Both the direct approach, open house or personal visit, and the indirect approach, students and alumni promoting the program, were reported as effective recruitment activities.
Quality is extremely important to the processors of horticultural and agricultural commodities. It is important from the standpoint of producing high-quality end-products as well as resulting in lower costs and higher profits. However, producers of commodities receive few benefits from the production of higher quality for several reasons. One important reason is that producers lack information about the qualities processors require. In addition, producers are uninformed of the end-user quality their crops manifest. Presently, little incentive exists for producers to improve quality, other than that provided by USDA Grades and Standards. Using experimental economics, empirical evidence is provided demonstrating that increased awareness of crop quality requirements of processors by producers influences market efficiency, pricing efficiency, and crop quality management strategies of producers.
Internships are becoming an increasingly used mechanism of providing undergraduates with experience in their chosen profession before job placement, and potential employers view internships favorably in making hiring decisions. Many horticulture programs require internships as part of their curricula, while others are considering the option. Because internship opportunities in horticulture have been compiled in a wide variety of discipline-specific resources with no central, inclusive “clearinghouse,” students often overlook potential opportunities, particularly those outside of their home state, leaving some industry members without interns. The internet-based database of internships developed jointly by Virginia Tech and Ohio State will be discussed within the context of being a resource for all horticulture programs. Other schools will be shown how to contribute to and to use the database so its national scope can be fully used and expanded.
A focus group was conducted to ascertain the attitudes and behaviors of wholesale floriculture greenhouse growers toward the use of computers for marketing purposes. The focus group consisted of nine individuals from nine different wholesale greenhouses in the Greater Cleveland - Lorain area. The greenhouses were selected according to their sizes which ranged from one-half acre of production under cover up to 70 acres. Each individual was either the owner of the greenhouse operation or charged with the marketing function in that company. The study was conducted for the purposes of identifying possible factors related to the speed of adoption of computer technology for marketing purposes and its possible future course within the wholesale greenhouse industry. Variables that were identified from the focus group study were tested using a national survey.
In 1981, four apple cultivars were established as a low trellis hedgerow on 11.9 or free-standing central leaders on 11.7 at the recommended or half the recommended spacing with the close planted trees either root pruned or hedged. The trellis had a higher trunk area (TCA)/ha (31%), yield/ha (41%) and tree efficiency (19%). `Lawspur Rome Beauty' had the highest TCA/ha, cumulative yield/ha and greatest tendency toward biennial bearing of the 4 cvs. `Smoothee Golden Delicious' trees in the central leader system were less efficient (kg/cm2) than in the trellis system. Hedging increased cumulative yield/ha compared to standard spaced trees with root pruned trees intermediate. Training trees to the trellis increased the density of both spurs and shoots and resulted in a higher leaf area index. Central leader trees of `Smoothee' and `Red Chief' had higher light transmission levels than the trellis, while the trellis trees had higher light levels with `Lawspur'. Return over total cost was negative for years 1-10 for all systems. Cumulative NPV for `Redchief' hedged on central leader equaled `Lawspur' at the standard spacing on trellis and exceeded all other combinations.
Abstract
The use of micro-computer programs as a management teaching aid has enabled horticulture students to understand economic relationships involved in the production of apples (2, 3), strawberries (4), and selected greenhouse crops (7). By incorporating uncertainty about final crop yield and selling price, these models can be used to generate information about the relative “riskiness” of crop production, where risk is measured by the probability that total revenue will exceed total costs (1, 8). The objective of this research was to develop a micro-computer model that would assist students and/or producers in understanding the economic relationships between yield and price variability and overall risk.