May 27, 2005

Latest Vendor NewsSource: Various

McGregor Developments

URC PROGRAM. McGregor Plant Sales releases the new Four Seasons URC Program. Professional growers can discover new opportunities to improve reliability, increase sales and achieve higher profits with the new program.

Four Seasons delivers new proprietary and open varieties with volume discounts and web-based ordering direct from real-time availability that stretches out 40 weeks to allow advanced planning and easy ordering. Quick reference cultural information on the new Web site compliments product search and filtering capabilities to save growers time in sourcing and specifying plants for any vegetative program in any zone, according to the manufacturer.

Four Seasons delivers reliability to growers with 24-hour confirmations, shipment pre-advisories, 97-percent order fill rate, guaranteed clean, virus-free plants and complete shipment tracking from the farm to the grower.

WEB SITE. McGregor Plant Sales launched a new Web site created to meet the diverse needs of professional growers to reduce risk, increase sales and improve profitability. McGregor’s new site is www.mcgregorplantsales.com.

FMC Corporation Wins Lawsuit

FMC Corporation recently disclosed that after hearing evidence presented in a lawsuit brought by FMC Corporation against Control Solutions Inc. (CSI), the United States District Court found that CSI willfully violated FMC’s copyright in the TalstarOne multi-insecticide product label and is willfully selling its Bifen I/T product with an infringing product label. CSI was found to have knowingly and willingly assisted other generic manufacturers to label their respective bifenthrin-based products with a similarly infringing label, according to Don Claus, director, FMC Specialty Products Business. TalstarOne multi-insecticide is FMC’s flagship product used by pest management and lawn care professionals to provide broadspectrum control of over 75 species of pests.

The Court has issued a preliminary injunction ordering CSI and any entity acting in concert with CSI, to: (1) stop manufacturing the infringing label or causing the label to be manufactured; (2) halt using the infringing label; (3) stop placing any product that has the infringing label affixed to it into the stream of commerce; (4) destroy all existing infringing labels; and (5) immediately provide all of Bifen I/T’s distributors, customers and sub-registrants with a copy of the preliminary injunction order, said Claus.

Floranova Gets Sold

Floranova Limited recently announced that the holders of its Ordinary Shares have received an offer from Icepage Limited to acquire the entire Ordinary Share capital of the company.

Icepage, an independent horticultural investment company, is chaired by Jeff Colegrave, former chief executive of the Davis Colegrave Group. Since he left this position in 2001, Colegrave has been pursuing various business interests outside of the ornamental industry. He commented that, “We see a great opportunity to build on Floranova’s very strong performance, particularly over the last five years. We will invest in the business to ensure that it can build on its position as one of the world’s leading independent breeding companies.”

For more information contact Floranova at msummers@floranova.co.uk.