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MEMBER PROFILE 



BLUE BELL 



BLUE BELL be- 



gan 1986 when Yuda and '• » Amy 

 Daskal put up two 27x96 New England- 

 ers on their newly-purchased ten ares in 

 Lee. They were up in time for a winter 

 crop of snaps. 

 Yuda grew up in Israel — his parents emigrated 

 there from Rumania at the end of World War II to live 

 on a kibbutz in the mountains in the north. At the 

 time, Israel was trying to find a niche in the agricul- 

 tural export market to Europe — there was (and still is) 

 no trade with its neighbors — and a lot of crops — cot- 

 ton, bananas, potatoes — were tried at the Daskals' 

 kibbutz. (Avocados did well — both horticulturally and 

 commercially.) 



He came to America, studied agriculture at Cornell, 

 then returned to Israel — to another kibbutz, this one 

 in Galilee. Here, among other crops, cut flowers were 

 grown — again for the European market. There was a 

 field of anemones, another of ranunculus, and experi- 

 ments with the unusual — things like banksia, an Aus- 

 tralian plant with a pincushion-like blossom. 



He and Amy met there and they came back to 

 America (she grew up in New jersey) to be near fam- 

 ily in New Hampshire. He worked at other green- 

 houses (Newton Greenhouse among them) for a 

 couple years before starting a business of their own. 



PEN TO THE NEW 



FROM THE FIRST, the Oaskals grew cut 

 flowers. They decided to concentrate on those that 

 prefer cool temperatures (to cut fuel costs ) and which 

 do not ship well (to minimize competition from long- 

 range shippers). They began with snapdragon and 

 were always looking for other crops that meshed well 

 with snap production. Practical considerations had to 

 be taken into account — lapanese thistle (Cirsium 

 japonicum), for example, cost more than the market 

 price to produce; godesia turned out to be highly sus- 

 ceptible to botrytis and aphids. (It also wasn't a good 

 year-round crop, although it did well in the right sea- 

 son.) They grew calendula, sweet william, iris, and 

 freesia. Yuda says that "iris was successful very lo- 

 cally, but couldn't compete with west coast iris in the 

 Boston market." Freesia worked out well. Now snaps 

 and freesia are Blue Bell's main cut flower crops. 



Each year there are four loosely defined cycles of 

 snaps. There's no supplemental lighting and the 

 length of the cycles change — the time from planting to 

 harvest can be as little as six weeks in summer, as 

 long as four months in winter Varieties change with 

 the season as well — some types grow better in less 

 light, some in more heat, etc. Whenever a bench is 

 harvested, it's replanted, not when an official cycle 

 begins. (The harvest time required also reflects the 

 season — in summer, an entire crop can mature within 



December 1993 / lanuary 1994 



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