Does anyone have specific recommendations on varieties and culture for straight up poinsettia production?

Try this link for cultural information:

http://www.ecke.com/html/tibs/tib_singlestem.html

A few varieties that make great straight-ups include:

Winter Rose
Prestige Early Red
Prestige
Classic Family
Red Velveteen
Enduring Family

Please let us know if you have more questions!

We use Classics for most of our straight up program. Prestige work also but will require more disbudding to make a nice clean presentation. You will find Classics will develop less "grass" to remove and bigger bracts. Ecke has seems to moved away from straight up genetics as more and more growers go pinched only. There is still a great market for Dinner plate bracts on straight ups in the independent retail florist. They don't offer varieties like C-1 and Celebrate 2 anymore. Those were killer straight ups. What sizes do you grow? We still do 3,4,5,7,and 10 bloom straight ups.

Sio,
Spacing is critical on straight ups. You cannot let them get to big before final spacing and we turn short cuttings in the pot to the south if one cutting is shorter than the others many times this gives the cutting a chance to catch up. We begin dis budding of lateral shots in early October and at this time make adjustments to the spaceing by turning pots that need it and moving some taller pot to the back of our benches (northside) and shorter ones to the front of the bench. It is to late now but at potting we "pan" all of the pots by selecting like sized cutting both in caliper and height then plant the matched groups in the finished pot. Good luck this season.

We use Freedom Red. Put lights on until Oct. 1. It is ready for sale the week of Thanksgiving.