Apr 11, 2015

Syngenta Flowers Awards Goldsmith Scholarships at California Spring Trials By Tim Hodson

It’s now Day 3 of California Spring Trials!

Team GPN began our journey on Saturday morning at the Proven Winners location in Santa Cruz and then headed to Syngenta Flowers in Gilroy.

While we were there Syngenta Flowers announced the winners of the 2015 Glenn Goldsmith Breeding Excellence Scholarship and the Goldsmith Seeds Floriculture Business Advancement Scholarship.

Kim Shearer Lattier, a graduate student at Oregon State University, was the recipient of the Glenn Goldsmith Breeding Excellence Scholarship and Jackie Wang, a student at California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo, received the Goldsmith Seeds Floriculture Business Advancement Scholarship.

Lattier is working on a degree focusing on plant breeding and genetics, and Wang is studying toward a degree in environmental science and agriculture.

Joel Goldsmith presented Lattier and Wang each with a check for $7,500 at a special ceremony during lunch at the Syngenta facilities (see photo). And just in case you didn’t know, Glenn Goldsmith, Joel’s father, is credited with starting Pack trials back in the 1960s.

After we finished at Syngenta, we headed down to Headstart Nursery facilities to check out the new introductions from Danziger “Dan” Flower Farm and then to Speedling in San Juan Bautista.

On Sunday, we started our day bright and early in Watsonville at Pacific Plug & Liner and Benary.

We capped off our day at Floricultura’s facilities in Encinitas where we enjoyed a nice reception with all of the folks from Westflowers, Plug Connection and Beekenkamp.

Our weeklong tour continues today as we make our way south throught the Golden State ending up in Oxnard on Thursday afternoon.

Have you been following our adventures on www.CaliforniaSpringTrials.com? We have been posting a ton of photos of the new intros that we have been seeing. Click here to check out our photo gallery.

Also, Jasmina Dolce has been blogging about our adventures and some of the new varieties that have caught her eye so far. You can read her Culture Connection blog by clicking here.

– Tim