Yeh, I've been seeing the same thing with my procuts. The ones I cut in early July had good, strong, straight petals. The ones I am cutting now, with the drought and mid 90 temps, the petals aren't straight, they tend to bend every which way. The color of the yellows isn't quite as bold either. Do you suppose it is the weather?

Glad you brought this up, I've been wondering about it for a while!

I haven't had any such trouble, so maybe it is your weather. Drought is normal here in July and August, so I irrigate everything with a T-tape drip system. We have highs in the 80's and 90's, but with no humidity. All the nights go down into the 40's and 50's, so the plants can recover from heat stress every night.

Are any other Western growers having Pro-Cut problems? If not, it could be the Midwestern/Eastern weather.

Jeanne

You have grown Sunbright before. We consider these sunflowers the Cadillac in the sunflower department. The only reason we use ProCut (and we only grow Orange) in the beginning of the season is to get us out there early with sunflowers. The ProCut never have performed as well as Sunbright and Sunbright Supreme. The Arnoskys always say thought that you should grow something for two years before giving up on it. The first year is to make all the mistakes. The second year is to see how the plant actually performs.

Peach and lemon pro cut looked horrible. Won't grow them again. Bi color was fine, but didn't seem to last as long in the field. Pro cut orange and Sunbbright were perfect.

My second planting of pro-cut yellows also were smaller, had wrinkled petals and the yellow was really pale compared to the earlier planting. I think it must have been the combination of drought and non stop 90 degree days that had an effect on them. The Oranges and Bi-colors were smaller too but the color and quality were still good. I've got 3000 Sunbright Supremes due to bloom over the next few weeks, we'll see how they look, I've never grown them before.

By the way, thanks for the tip on the Double Quicks that you posted last year Jeanne. I planted them this year and they are fabulous. I planted them in a little poorer soil so they were smaller than I expected but the florists love them that size, can't get enough of them. The cucumber beetles love them too, so I cut early and let them open up a little in the garage.

Steve

I am curious as to whether anyone else is having a problem w/vase life on the Double Quicks? The plants have done very well and I think they are one of the prettiest sunflowers I've grown-but the vase life stinks. I cut the flowers early, and I am not using a preservative or a hydrator(I never use preservative on suns). It's been heartbreaking because we have had to just mow all the rows down and not use the flowers. We are only getting about 5 days of vase life and that is just not enough for our purposes

Thanks for everyone's reply. It's good to know that I am not the only one with the problem, although as flowerfarmer pointed out, we are probably using them too late in the season when they are not at their best. Perhaps with Sunbright Supreme, we should go with the saying, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." I'll go back to them next season, except maybe one early planting of Pro-cut Orange...Ann