19 Sep Río Tollo reaches 1.5 million cuttings of one of its flagship products, the Camellia

For three months we work in the pruning, selection and multiplication of different varieties of this plant, always looking for quality and excellence

An average of 30,000 units of camellia a day for almost three months, about 1.5 million alone this season. These are the numbers of Viveiros Río Tollo, which every year perfects the techniques of pruning, selection and multiplication to become one of the largest producers of this plant in Europe. Since they began their activity in the year 2000, workers have been gaining experience for a task that is done entirely manually and that takes care of every step to get the best product, from the search for “very precise specifications in each branch that is cut “until the selection and preparation for the planted.

In the last 20 years, Río Tollo has gone from going from garden to garden looking for the best camellias to make their cuttings to have their own selection of mother plants. Throughout these years he has developed his own collection selected with more than 200 varieties of camellia, including 4 new varieties obtained in our test fields. A few years of experience and improvement in the own production of camellia led by Mrs. María Soledad Rodríguez, responsible for the development of one of the star plants of Río Tollo.

They will start arriving in the market in 2021

From June to September, Río Tollo becomes a hotbed for workers preparing for future camellia plants. After selecting and cutting the spring and summer buds of their mother plants, the future camellias are taken to technified facilities with climate control and automatic irrigation.

It is a long-term job: from pruning until it starts selling, it takes at least 3 years. Thus, the plants that are being pruned this season will not start going to market until 2021 in its small size.

A fundamental task that is repeated every season and that generates “a chain that can not be broken” to have new camellias every year, one of the few ornamental plants capable of circumventing the cold and filling the gardens with colors in the middle of winter.

As a producer, Viveiros Río Tollo multiplies the different varieties of camellia he works with, discarding some and experimenting with new ones, seeking to highlight properties such as smell, resistance, strength, color… of the plant. In short, always investigating in favor of novelty, originality, differentiation and improvement.

It is this search for excellence and the commitment to innovation that leads this producer to plan different amounts of multiplication depending on the variety of camellia in question. Viveiros Río Tollo stands out precisely for its constant effort and its strong investment in I+D+i, which is completed with its collaboration with technology centers, scientists and companies from five continents as well as trips around the world to learn new techniques and new products.