Agra Tech in Pittsburg , CA is ramp up on typic client service . The Pound Family has established a custom that ’s base on a very simple conception . If you make customer # 1 , and turn out it with everything you do , success will mature just like a healthy plant .
This web log focuses on Hollandale Nursery in Lodi , CA , an Agra Tech client that is do it for growing some of California ’s fine poinsettias . With four sewer - connected Insulator greenhouses equaling 13,000 sq . ft . compound , Owner Al Warmerdam rely on his Agra Tech structure to grow a wide change of veg and blossom bedding plants and Mexican flameleaf every twelvemonth .
By 1967 , he was all - in with poinsettias as his main crop , and today Hollandale Nursery grows more than 300 different varieties of bloomer and vegetable .
Al ’s papa eventually said arrivederci to the cows altogether and hello to a smart future as a greenhouse James Leonard Farmer . With Safeway and Save - Mart as his independent customers , Jerry Warmerdam bought his first greenhouse from Agra Tech and pip the ground running .
When Jerry Warmerdam begin selling to Save Mart , they had six stores and now they have 160 . Today , the nursery sells to all of their stores that have outdoor nurseries with an vehemence on annual and perennials , in improver to a lot of self-governing growers , landscaping company , and fundraisers in conjunction with local schools and hospitals .
“ We have our hand on a destiny of different things , ” Al aver . “ But we like it that means . Dad is pretty much retired at this point , with my little sister Sam and my boy Bret running the business concern with me now . He taught us the right fashion and we have keep up in his footsteps with somewhat much everything we do here . ”
Al got involved in the business in 1992 , after studying horticulture at UC Davis and then go afield to complete his schooling at the University of Amsterdam , his father ’s alma mater . “ It was a great opportunity for me to watch my parents ’ language and their culture as well , ” he tell . “ I study the Dutch means of grow plants and today I still apply many of the same proficiency I learned there . ”
The poinsettia is a commercially important works species that is endemic to Mexico and Central America . It was first report by Europeans in 1834 , and is particularly well known for its cherry-red and green foliation and is widely used in Christmas floral displays . It deduce its uncouth English name from Joel Roberts Poinsett , the first United States Minister to Mexico , who is credit with introducing the flora to the US in the 1820s .
Poinsettias are shrubs or small trees and grow in the wilderness from Mexico to southern Guatemala , primarily on mid - elevation , Pacific - face slopes . Every class in the U.S approximately 70 million poinsettias of many civilise varieties are sold within a six - week point .
The poinsettia growing unconscious process recoil off every July when the Warmerdam family unit starts with stem cuttings they gain from raiser in San Diego , CA , where most of the land ’s poinsettias are raise . During the early stage of increase and development , the baby’s room uses a sprinkler system to intermittently spray the poinsettia ’s leaves with H2O during the hot summer month . Throughout the growing process , the kin stays alert and attentive , controlling every aspect of the humidness , temperature , fertilizer , airflow , and water , until the poinsettia are quick to be ship in November . Once the plant are to the full mature , Al Warmerdam water them weekly until they get shipped off for sale .
Well - known for their Christmas flower , the Warmerdam family line also grows flowers such as tulips and chrysanthemums , as well as vegetables like tomatoes and peppers , and cucumbers , which replace the poinsettias right after the holiday time of year .
With some items , once his plants get ancestor , Al ’s squad moves them out of the nursery and into the ground . But ultimately , 80 percent of everything they grow is farm completely in an Agra Tech greenhouse .
The nursery sport more than 15 Christmas flower in unlike colour , with expectant names like Jingle Bell , which has speckle leave , or Ice Princess , a pink plant with colouring material fade from dark to visible radiation . They start out with 40,000 painted leaf cuttings to ply Save Mart Supermarkets from Bakersfield to Sacramento with plants by Thanksgiving .
Beautiful poinsettias rise in Agra Tech Inslator greenhouseIn a world where hand - on client service of process is an ancient fine art , Warmerdam is highly impressed by the Agra Tech way of doing thing . “ You call company now and unspoiled luck , they are n’t going to get back to you quickly or at all , ” he enounce . “ We had n’t talked to the people at Agra Tech in quite some time , but when I reached out to them , they called us back within an hour . Everything was all salutary — just like the quondam days . We are a family business and all of my clients have my personal cell number , so we get it when it comes to customer service and Agra Tech is the same way . ”
The person that helped Al most recently and made a swell feeling with her quick and accurate answers to his questions is Alma Uribe , Agra Tech ’s Customer Service / Order Coordinator . “ Alma took control of the situation and was proactive , which we really appreciate , ” he said . “ I brag about Agra Tech all the time and have-to doe with them to other grower when I can . Their product are top - notch and their astuteness of knowledge about this manufacture is amazing . ”
Al utter about one of his first experience working with Agra Tech many years ago . “ One of our greenhouses was n’t move to choke inspection with the county because its nose candy load was insufficient . I was only 24 at the metre , and I ’m a California hombre , so I knew zero about snow load capabilities and my parents were in Europe . But Bob Pound from Agra Tech shew up one day and run into the ground running with unexampled plan and unexampled cables , and helped us to go past just in metre for our grow season . I experience that I am not Agra Tech ’s braggy customer , but they express up on a Sunday and we passed snow load review on Monday . Who else does that ? ”
you may tell the people at Agra Tech have devote their life to what they ’re doing , Al explained . “ It ’s a very small cosmos . Jim Bergantz ’s father Cecil at the Bergantz Nursery in Angels Camp was contacted by my dad many years ago to aid them with over overwinter ( shout “ chilling " ) temperature below 40 degrees for the tulip bulbs before the they can be coerce into blooming . So , my beginner render 1000 of 6 " pot tulip bulbs to Bergantz Nursery where they spent the winter outside in loamy sand be intimate a routine of weeks . Then the pots were brought back to the Hollandale Nursery ’s Agra Tech greenhouses to be forced into flowering and then sold to their customer for Valentines and Mother ’s Day bloomers . The greenhouse industry is more than just a job for these mass ; it ’s in their DNA . ”
With Al ’s son Bret preparing to finally take over the business , the future looks brilliant for Hollandale Nursery . “ Bret really seems to like what he ’s doing here and he ’s anxious to discover , which is special , ” Al said . “ One thing I taught him is that if we ever need a new greenhouse or accessories or advice about anything nursery - touch , we can rely on Agra Tech . ”
