Portanova Rose Growers – Holland

On A Recent Visit To Portanova Janette & Deirdre Were Able To Ask All Your Questions To Aad The CEO Or Portanova

What roses do you grow here in portanova?

We grow red Naomi and White Naomi to the highest possible standard.

How many roses would you produce each day?

We cut 180,000 roses every day, no matter what the time of year is. We cut 50,000 white Naomi and 130,000 Red Naomi.

Is it that there is more demand for red that you cut more of these?

No the Red Naomi bush can be cut 2 times per day, where as the White Naomi is only cut once.

How many rose bushes do you have ?

We have approx. 20 hectors of Rose Bushes growing.

Your roses bushes are raised off the ground, why is this?

We do not grow roses in soil, we grow them in Rock Wool, this is very efficient at keeping the roses hydrated. 

How do you maintain the temperature in the green houses, last week it was 34 degrees in Amsterdam, today it is 17 degrees?

We have a highly efficient air-conditioning system that maintains the green houses at 19.5 degrees all year round, 24 hours per day.

Its daylight now but you still have lights on in the green house?

We maintain the same light for 19 hours per day, and we give the roses 4 hours of darkness at night.

Do you have staff here cutting all day ? 

No we have a staff of 200 people who work from 8am to 4pm each day, they work 6 days per week for 12 weeks and then get 3 weeks off. 

You must use a huge amount of water to water the roses daily?

We use 500,000 liters of water to water the roses daily, however the roses only need 50% of this amount but this is to allow for the rock wool to stay moist.  Any water not used is returned to our system and filtrated to be used again.  We also store 8000 cubic liters of rain water that we use and we also have water stored 30 meters below the ground that we can pump up when needed.

What happens once a rose is cut?

• Once a rose is cut it is brought immediately for a fridge of 1 degree and placed in a cold water. Once a rose is cut it is starting to die, time is of the essence.

• Roses are them brought to a grading fridge where they are graded by a machine by their heard size, thickness of their stem and length of their stem.

• Once graded they are grouped together in bunches of 10 then they are hand checked by people to ensure each rose is of top quality before being packaged and put into buckets of cold water.

Some people say room temperature water is better for roses?

No, cold water is best, as it contains more oxygen than room temperature.

How much water should be in the bucket?

As much as possible as long as there are no leaves in the water.  The more water the more pressure pushing water up the stems.

Why do roses not have much of a smell?

We grow roses for quality and longevity, to achieve this you will compromise on the smell, other roses like David Austin have an amazing perfume, but will not last so long once cut.

How long should a Red Naomi last? 

From leaving our premises we would expect each rose to last two and a half weeks in optimum conditions.