StoX® Series | Stock (Matthiola)

We're here in the fall tunnel trial looking at stock or Matthiola. Stock is a cool season crop, so we typically grow it a few times a year for spring blooms or early fall blooms. This trial right here was seeded in late June, transplanted in late July. This is now mid-September. We've had a pretty cool rainy summer. So overall, these plantings may be a little bit shorter and the blooms are a little bit smaller than we would typically see.

We're looking specifically at the StoX® series, that’s StoX® with an “X”. It's a series that we're pretty excited about because it offers both unique colors and quite excellent performance. We've grown it both in the spring and in the fall slot and we found it to be pretty consistent with the Iron Series, if you're familiar with Iron. Some of the characteristics that both the Iron and Stock Series share is that they're highly uniform in terms of their bloom time and plant architecture.

They’re blooming at a similar time across the plots and across the colors. They have very straight, strong stems. And then they also have really beautiful colors. The bloom time and plant height is also comparable to the Iron Series.

The plant height here, as I mentioned, is a little shorter, but we're getting stems of about 22 to 24 inches in this trial. StoX® is, like most modern stock varieties, a single stem series. That means one plant, one stem, one cut-flower per seed or per plant. The nice thing about a single stem variety is that it makes harvest and cleaning of the plants quite efficient. A fast harvest and a quick cleaning of the stem.

This variety is StoX® Rose Pink. It's a sort of medium-soft, more muted pink. As a color comparison, here is Iron Pink, which is representative of a kind of a typical pink color in stock. And you can see it's quite a bit brighter than StoX® Rose Pink which is more muted and soft. Just as another color comparison, here is Iron Cherry, which is that soft cherry blossom color.

This is Antique Rose, another unique color in the StoX® series. The closest color comparison, I would say is this, which is Vintage Brown. It's a popular variety that's been on the market for a while. You can see that Antique Rose is similar in hue, but a little bit lighter and softer than Vintage Brown. This is StoX® Champagne, probably the most unique color in the StoX® Series. As a color comparison here is Iron Cherry.

As another color comparison, here's Iron Apricot. StoX® Champagne sort of combines both this really pretty soft, rosy color with a warm apricot color at the center.

The StoX® Series is fragrant, and like most modern Matthiola or stock varieties, you will get about 55% double flowers and about 45% single flowers without selection. Selection at the seedling stage is possible with a cold treatment. If double flowers are priority for your production, I recommend reading up on that process.

We really enjoyed trialing and learning about the StoX® series and we hope they grow well for you.

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