Speaker: Sherri Chavez, Association of Specialty Cut Flower Growers
Recorded introduction: Whitney Ottinger
Introduced and moderated by: Gabrielle LaTora
Duration: 10:06.8 (606.783 s, measured)
Series: Cut Flower Symposium
Webinar Date: July 23, 2026
Introduction
Gabrielle LaTora: All right, next we’re going to kick it over to our next session. We have Sherri Chavez from the Association of Specialty Cut Flower Growers.
Greeting and Recorded Introduction
Sherri Chavez: Hi everybody, how are you doing today? We hope you’re doing well and I’m really grateful for the opportunity to talk to you a little bit about what we do at the ASCFG.
Blocks 5 and 6 are a short scripted introduction of the organization, delivered by Whitney Ottinger, that sits inside Sherri Chavez’s greeting rather than before it.
Whitney Ottinger: Founded in 1988, the ASCFG is the leading nonprofit supporting commercial cut flower growers with more than 1,500 members across North America and beyond. Through production and marketing education, farm tours, webinars, and research funding, it helps growers of every size grow better and market smarter.
Sherri Chavez: I’m really grateful for the opportunity to speak with you today and tell you a little bit about the ASCFG and what we do.
What the ASCFG Is
So we’re a membership-driven trade association that was created to support, educate, and unite cut flower growers. We support cut flower research, and we really place a value on peer-to-peer learning.
We were created in 1988 as the brainchild of Allan Armitage and [VERIFY: "Judy Lauschman"] as they recognized the importance to strengthen the domestic cut flower industry, to champion the power of peer-to-peer learning within the cut flower community, to facilitate cut flower research, and also to promote public awareness about the importance of local blooms.
Membership Benefits
The Cut Flower Quarterly
Talking a little bit about some of our membership benefits, some of our most important ones, perhaps you’re familiar with the Cut Flower Quarterly, which is a quarterly magazine that we produce that’s given only to our members in hard copy each quarter. It’s mailed directly to their address and their membership profile. It’s a wonderful production and it deals with all sorts of topics that cut flower farmers find valuable.
The Members-Only Learning Portal
If you become a member in 2026, not only will you receive the hard copy Cut Flower Quarterly issues, but when you join, you have access to our members-only learning portal, which allows you to take a look at any past issue of the Cut Flower Quarterly that we’ve produced and housed there. So you get access to all 38 years of materials that we’ve combined and compilated and put in our member portal. In addition, you can take a look at all our past seed trial reports, all of our past educational videos.
We’ve recorded some past conferences and webinars that you can take a look at there. Also, we have documents on a variety of topics pertaining to cut flower growing. So when you become a member, you have access not only to this year’s new information, but also to the historic record that we’ve created for cut flower growers.
Educational Programs
Ask an Expert
We have a monthly webinar series exclusively for members called Ask an Expert. As I mentioned, we value peer-to-peer learning, so many of our Ask an Expert sessions are on topics pertaining to cut flower growing led by member experts. So you can tune in live and learn along with them in a live Zoom session. Or if that doesn’t work out in your schedule in any given month, through the learning portal, you can take a look at past sessions of those as well.
Digging Deep and Flowers Are Serious Business
We have other online educational opportunities as well. We have a Digging Deep webinar series, a Flowers Are Serious Business learning series, which members are allowed to join for a nominal fee and learn about another additional specific topic, business topics, or topics pertaining to growing specifically.
In-Person Programs and Mentoring
In addition to online learning, we also have a variety of in-person programs: conferences, floral design intensive, trade shows, farm tours, grower schools, so our members are able to participate in any of those if they work geographically in their planning and travel schedule. We also have a mentor program that is an online cohort-based, member-led mentor program. We haven’t released the details of what that looks like for 2026, but we should be learning more about that soon.
Cut Flower Trials
As I mentioned already, we have a cut flower trial program. So this year we’ve actually done two different trials. Traditional cut flower trials, which we’ve done for a number of years, and our members have access to those historic records throughout time. New results for this year are released in the Cut Flower Quarterly in the fall.
But this year we’re also doing a lily trial. So we’ve combined with, partnered with some European bulb growers to trial lilies and lily production, specifically in North America, to see how those crops do. So those results will be available at some point to our members as well.
The Members’ Facebook Group
We have a closed Facebook group that we like to say is like having a consulting firm at your fingertips. So the conversation there varies every day, exclusively for our members, and we ask that group stay specifically for cut flowering, flower growing questions.
So today, for example, somebody is talking about how, what payroll services people use for their employees. Somebody is talking about a structure that they are not sure will work for a specific crop. Somebody’s talking about a pest that they’re seeing on a crop that they’re wondering if they can get some guidance and help on. So it’s, it can run the gamut at any given day what the conversations are, and we encourage our members to participate and to learn from that experience as well.
localflowers.org
So we talked a little bit about the importance of building within the public, the importance of local flowers, local businesses and local blooms. And as a result, we’ve created a map-based website that our members can participate on called localflowers.org.
Members have a page that they manage that tells a little bit about the crops they grow and the type of business that they have. And potential customers or anyone who’s curious can use the map tool to find local growers who are our members in their area to try to find flowers and flower businesses that they may need. So all our members have the opportunity to be listed there so long as they’re ready to have a public facing page.
Supplier Members and Publications
We have a variety of supplier members who value what we do to educate and unite cut flower growers. And as such, several of those give member discounts exclusively to ASCFG members, so you can find a lot of savings using the supplier members that offer those additional discounts as you plan your upcoming seasons. We also have a variety of publications.
You’ll see Allan Armitage’s name appearing here, of course, but these are well-respected resources. Many people say that they are the go-to resource for these topics. You can purchase these as non-members for a little bit of an increased price, but our members get a discount on those books and they are available to purchase through our website.
Upcoming Farm Tours
We have a variety of upcoming farm tours. A few of them have already passed and a few of them are already full. However, we have space available in these three upcoming tours. So if you’re still planning some travels later this year, there’s an opportunity to visit a farm tour that we host. There’s still space in the afternoon Roots Cut Flower Farm tour on August 7th. You can travel to Ontario, Canada on August 18th.
But I’ll just let you know that if that may be in your travel plans, registration is closing for that event on August next week. So please hop online, go to our website and register for that tour right away. Or if Eugene, Oregon sounds appealing to you, Charles Little and Company has a little bit of space left too on August 25th. So we would love to have you join us for those events.
Membership Offer
And last but not least, we’d like to extend a membership offer. We would love to include you among the ASCFG community. If you grow cut flowers, we feel you belong here and we would love to add your voice to the conversation. Anybody who is participating today in this conference can scan this QR code and receive a $50 savings off their first year’s membership.
I’d love to hear from you. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me. My contact information is on this slide. And I’m so grateful to the University of Georgia for giving us the opportunity to speak with you today about the ASCFG. Thanks so much.
Closing Exchange
Gabrielle LaTora: Let’s see. Growers, your QR code for the membership link. If you will just email that to me, then I can share it in the chat so that everybody has that and we’ll make sure to share Sherri’s contact information. If anybody has questions for Sherri, feel free to put them in the Q&A or in the chat. I don’t see any at this moment, but I’ll keep an eye on it for a minute.
Sherri Chavez: Not a problem. I’ll be happy to share the QR code and I’ll just send that to Bethany’s email if that’s helpful. And that way you can post it in the chat. I’ll just include all my contact information on this last slide.
Gabrielle LaTora: That’s perfect. Thank you for your flexibility.
Sherri Chavez: Oh, it’s my pleasure. We’re delighted. Thank you so much for the opportunity.
Gabrielle LaTora: Thank you. We appreciate your support. I don’t see any questions right now, so we’re going to go ahead and transition to our next session.
Transcript processed for UGA Center for Urban Agriculture / Cut Flower Symposium Archives
Source: Corrected SRT (Stage 1) – GTBOP_Transcript_2026-07-23_ASCFGMessage.srt (110 blocks)