Main Street Produce Inc. in Santa Maria, CA, which undertook a significant expansion in its strawberry acreage in 2012, has bumped up its anticipated production again for 2013, with about a 20 percent increase in acreage as well as a shift in varieties, according to President Paul Allen.

The Easter holiday will be a time of good potato movement for Florida Fresh Potato Growers Inc. “March will probably be the heaviest shipping season,” said Ken Wiles, vice president of sales with cooperative member Mack Farms Inc. “I would say movement overall is fairly brisk.”

Memorial Day is getting renewed attention as an occasion for remembrance of deceased veterans through the Memorial Day Flowers Program, operated by a new nonprofit foundation. The program had a “soft opening” on Memorial Day 2012 and is expanding this year.

The project builds community ties between supermarket floral departments and other floral retailers and local groups such as Veterans of Foreign Wars. They work together on Memorial Day ceremonies to encourage relatives and volunteers to lay roses on tombstones and to take roses home in memory of the veterans.

Women’s Day on March 8 seemed to industry veterans to be growing as a floral holiday. “The mass market is starting to make it a promotional opportunity,” said Lane DeVries, president and chief executive officer of Sun Valley Group in Arcata, CA. He had proposed the industry make it a floral holiday in a guest column in The Produce News in January 2012.

NEW YORK — The World Floral Expo seemed to be building an audience as it held its three-day run in New York for the second straight year and drew more people than last year, with registration up 12 percent. The show was held March 13-15 at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York.

The new year got off to a fast start as Valentine’s Day set records in many stores. On its heels was Women’s Day, March 8, a growing floral holiday. Easter results were not in at press time, but were predicted to continue a rebound. The biggest floral day of all, Mother’s Day, awaits.