Poinsettia seedling to branch, resulting in a bushier plant. In the late 1980s, university researcher John Dole discovered the method previously known only to the Eckes and published it, allowing competitors to flourish, particularly those using low-cost labor in Latin America. The Ecke family's business, now led by Paul Ecke III, decided to stop producing plants in the U.S., but as of 2008, they still serve about 70 percent of the domestic market and 50 percent of the worldwide market. The poinsettia has been cultivated in Egypt since the 1860s, when it was brought from Mexico during the Egyptian campaign. It
Poinsettia Bowl was as an armed forces football championship game, pitting western and eastern military services champions against each other. In the inaugural Poinsettia Bowl, the Bolling Air Force Base Generals defeated the San Diego Naval Training Center Bluejackets by a score of 35–14 on December 20, 1952. The game was held at Balboa Stadium in San Diego in a torrential downpour, before hundreds of reluctant sailors – including future College Football Hall of Fame coach Hayden Fry – who were ordered to sit in the stands so that they wouldn't appear empty in the nationally televised game. Television came to terms