Teddahlia
Some of these cut flower criteria you could judge in a “show” setting like bloom angle and stem length, and bloom attachment.
However, some of the other valued/important good qualities in cut flowers such as: vigor, productivity, bloom time, bloom consistency over the season, etc. would need to be evaluated over a season/period of time. I think this is where a “trial garden” for cut flowers could make a lot of sense. I am not sure how much data and record keeping goes on for the current trial gardens. But I could see a cut flower trial garden being more demanding with its data collection.
I’d also add bonus points to vase life. It has to be a minimum of some number of days but bonus points if it’s over some number of days. I know bonus points is not a real category but maybe it could be or should be for cut flower judging? 😂🤷♀️
I would also wonder do leaves need to be scored for cut flower judging? I don’t sell cut flowers so maybe I’m totally wrong on this. I have pulled off damaged leaves and used a flower in an arrangement and the flower still looks great in a vase. I have never felt foliage is a must have on dahlias after it is cut and intended to be used as a cut flower….but like I said I’m not in the cut flower industry so idk
Say a new variety was advertised or presented as “scoring 91 at cut flower trial garden.” If the public was aware on what that score meant it could be a selling point. Maybe I’m over here thinking I’m doing great with my 10 blooms of small world per plant in a season but then I see a cut flower trial garden report of a white pom that made 20 blooms in a season! So then I think if I’m using space, spending money on fertilizer, water and time that is much more bang for my buck! I want to try that variety out! Or maybe something new in the cut flower trials blooms 2 weeks earlier than what I’m currently growing. This could push cut flower hybridizes to meet or exceed the “dahlia cut flower scorecard standards”. If your growing on a big scale extra time with flowers to sell or more flowers per plant can really add up to overall profit.
I feel like a lot of gardeners are constantly doing our own “trials” and experiments. That is half the fun for me! I also love to collect stats on when did something first bloom, how many blooms did I cut from it, vase life. I was keeping track of how many blooms I cut from each variety. But then stopped cutting to try to collect seed/pollen and all the record keeping went to crap!
