All-America Selections adds regional winners

DOWNERS GROVE, Ill. -- During the All-America Selections (AAS) 80^th Anniversary celebration in 2012, the AAS Board of Directors launched an extensive strategic plan to ensure a successful future of trialing and marketing new flowers and plants. Part of that success depends upon adapting to current trends and needs of the marketplace. Recognizing that Mother Nature and geographic differences are a very important part of gardening, AAS has decided to begin rewarding entries that have superior regional performance.   

Regional Winners – why?
Gardening is a very climate-dependent activity. In over 80 years of AAS trialing, many varieties with great genetics have been tested, but unfortunately, have not scored high enough in all regions to earn an overall national award.
 
With the farm-to-table movement for vegetables and a move to more locally produced products, there is a big shift on consumer attitude from national (or even international) to regional and local. An AAS Regional Winner that performs well in a specific region or regions has a great local story angle that will resonate with home gardeners. It means an even greater brand promise by giving the consumer a product that will truly perform well in their very specific regional climate.
 
As part of its long-term strategic planning, the AAS Board recognized that there is a vast and valuable group of past entries with Regional Winner potential. The 2010, 2011 and 2012 Trials were analyzed to determine which entries could have been a Regional Winner. The first of those Regional Winners will be announced in November, 2013 along with the standard November announcement of new national AAS Winners.

To keep the regional division fairly simple, North America was divided into six regions:
Northeast
Southeast
Great Lakes
Heartland
Mountain/Southwest
West/Northwest

Often, a Regional Winner will have performed well in more than one region. When the Regional Winners are announced, each region will be listed where the entry performed well. Based on the mathematical equation used to determine Winners, once an entry wins in four or more regions, it usually will qualify to become a National Winner. The AAS website will be completely revised by November 10 to accommodate the lists and designations of Regional Winners as well as the traditional National Winners. Regional Winners will be tagged using the Regional logo featured on the left and right of this newsletter's header. National Winners will continue to be labeled with the traditional AAS Winner logo in the center of that header.

The AAS trialing process has not changed because each entry will still be grown and judged based on noted characteristics of how they compare to similar varieties that are grown side-by-side. 

We encourage your questions and invite you to join in this exciting expansion of the AAS trialing program. Please contact Diane Blazek at dblazek@aas-ngb.org.