Last 3 weeks the weather in Ecuador but mainly in the north (Cayambe area) has been hit by heavy rains, dark and cold days. Last week we had a few days of nice weather were production came back to normal, we were very positive about the x-mas production…… Last Saturday the Cayambe valley was affected by a severe storm in the afternoon and hail storm where Hoja Verde is located. We had places where the hail had accumulated over 1 meter. In Hoja we didnґt suffer major damages, only some canals broke but not infrastructural damages.
The bad thing was that some hail got inside the greenhouses and hit some flowers that have mechanical damage but also the accumulation of hail inside the greenhouses keep the humidity very high during a couple of days and the development of heavy botrytis. As you know our policy is not to take petals out so there are some varieties that we are rejecting 100%. Production is high at the moment but we are only exporting around 60 to 70 % of what is produced. The greenhouses are full of production for the following weeks but we do depend in the weather.
Today we woke up with rain and it seems that it will keep raining the whole day. The forecast for the week is rain every day.
I do regret to give you this bad news. We do understand that this week is very important for all of us and it is going to be almost impossible to fulfill the orders for x-mas. We do need a few nice shiny days to get rid of the botrytis.
Eduardo Letort, GERENTE GENERAL
Hoja Verde
Eng 
