Advanced Crop Planning For Profit (Part 3)
Advanced Flower Farming Crop Planning For Profit
Welcome back to the 4-part Crop Planning series! If you’ve missed the first two posts, you can go back and check them out here (#1) and here (#2).
HOORAY! We are HALFWAY THERE! I hope you took some time to complete your crop plan up until now. If you haven’t- go back and do it now! Ain’t no time like the present, people! Successful people are DOERS- not just readers. And you wanna be a “doer”… dontcha?
Today we’ll be discussing part 3:
· Part 1: Financial Projections
· Part 2: Sales Projections & Marketing Chart
· Part 3: Production Plan & Field Map
· Part 4: Greenhouse Plan and In-Season Considerations
CROP PLANNING PART 3: PRODUCTION PLAN & FIELD MAP
A production plan is a document that tells you how much you need to grow of each flower crop, and therefore how much space you will need and how many seeds/plants you need. You’ll use the same list of flower crops and numbers from your simplified marketing chart (from part 2) to calculate how much you need to grow. Then, you’ll plot out where you’ll plant everything in your field map. You need to have a dedicated field map, a space allocated for each crop- otherwise you’ll be scrambling and panicking mid-season to squeeze things in (trust me, I’ve been there/done that and don’t ever wanna do it again).
In part 4, we will discuss putting everything into your greenhouse plan, which entails pulling data from your production plan to calculate when to start, transplant, and expect to harvest each flower crop. This final part of the plan makes the remainder of the season easy and breezy for me - it’s a game changer.
Back to spreadsheet land we go, folks. (sorry, but if you to want to be a badass business entrepreneur, you gotta learn to love spreadsheet land).
Production Plan
Step 1: Open your crop plan spreadsheet (or a fresh sheet of graph paper. …Actually, no- for the love of God if you are actually doing this on graph paper please do me a favor and go get Microsoft excel right now please???).
Open a new tab on the bottom of your spreadsheet. On the left column list all the same flower crops you plan to grow this season as you had on your other spreadsheets (copy & paste function is your friend, here). At the top row, punch in these titles (there’s an example spreadsheet at the end of this article):
CROP | TOTAL # BUNCHES | YIELD PER BED | # BEDS NEEDED | % SF | FINAL # BEDS NEEDED | # PLANTS PER BED | # SEEDS NEEDED
Step 2: From your simplified marketing chart, copy over the total # bunches needed for each crop into the “TOTAL # BUNCHES” column. For example, we discussed that I needed 120 bunches of stock in the marketing chart example for both florist sales and farmers market sales. Next to “Stock” I would put “120” under the TOTAL # BUNCHES column.
Next, in the YIELD PER BED column, put down your expected yields for each crop per one growing bed. I calculate all of my yields per (1) 30” x 100’ growing bed, since all of my beds are standardized to that size. It is very intelligent to standardize all your bed sizes and lengths for ease of planning, however, if that’s not the case you can just standardize your yields in the spreadsheet to one bed of equal size.
You can input yields from your past harvest records or just make an educated guess if you aren’t sure. To make an EDUCATED guess, use that impressively smart brain of yours: If you’re pretty sure one zinnia plant will give you 2 stems/week, and you have 400 plants in a bed, you can guess that you’ll get around 800 stems a week OR 80 (10-stem) bunches. If you harvest from your zinnias for 4 weeks, times 80 bunches by 4 weeks to get 320 bunches. (Again, this is why it’s crucial that you keep records, so you have accurate knowledge of your average yields). Be sure to err on the side of caution here and calculate less yields instead of more.
Step 3: In the “# OF BEDS NEEDED” column, divide the # of total bunches needed by your expected yields per bed for each crop to get your # of beds needed. For example, if I expect my average yield per 1 bed of ranunculus to be 400 bunches, and I need 1290 bunches total, I would divide 1290/400 = 3.23 beds. 3.23 goes in your “# beds needed column.” Complete this for all your crops: It’s real handy that you can just type a formula into excel and have it calculate all of this for you in an instant! (If you’re unsure how to do this, you’ll have to google it).
Step 4: Look to the “% SF” column. % SF stand for “percent safety factor.” The safety factor is a percentage you assign to each crop to account for losses such as poor germination, transplant loss, disease, pests, and just plain old incompetence (we all have some of it). We COULD be extreme here and put a 100% safety factor in for each crop, because we want to be prepared for a massive hurricane or tornado that may rip through our fields mid-season, stealing our hard-earned incomes. But, that would be fairly dramatic and would more likely result in a ton of overproduction, waste, and work that won’t result in earnings. Although, these are all things you DO need to consider because chances of natural disasters are a very real threat. Drought and excessive rains/flooding, unexpected cold spells or heatwaves are all a VERY REAL part of farming now and should be, frankly, expected. Use your farmer skills to prepare for these things.
Add a percentage that you feel comfortable with based on your past experience. For example, I generally don’t get 100% germination on my celosia. I usually get around 80% germ on my celosia trays, so I add in at least a 20% SF to my celosia. I also almost always allow my zinnias to get powdery mildew later in the season (because I am stupid and never preventatively spray them), so I add a % in to account for that as well. One year our dahlia yields were half of what they normally were due to an unprecedented hot summer, so I put a 30% SF in for dahlias-always. (side note: this process can be very revealing, it sometimes let’s you know what you kinda suck at and what has room for improvement). Go through each crop and add a % SF. Just be aware that if you add TOO much of a % SF, you may end up with a bumper crop that you can’t sell all of - which means just wasted time and money. Find a happy medium here.
Step 5: in the next column, “FINAL # BEDS NEEDED,” simply input a formula to add your % SF to each # of beds needed for each crop. For example, if I calculated that I needed 1 bed of celosia, but my %SF for celosia was 25% : I now will grow 1.25 beds of celosia. Use a formula in excel so it calculates them for you (again, you can google how to do this). Be sure to look over these numbers and feel comfortable with them: If last year you grew 1.5 beds of celosia but only sold a handful of celosia bunches all season - is it the best idea to plant 1.25 beds this year? Sometimes I will round up or down for ease of planting.
Step 6: In the “# PLANTS PER BED” enter in how many plants of each crop you will have in your standardized bed. This is based on individual crop spacing. For example, in a 100’ bed, I plant 400 plants at 9” spacing. At 6” spacing, I can fit 1,000 plants per 100’ bed. So, next to zinnias under “# plants per bed,” I put “400” because I grow them at 9” spacing.
Step 7: In the “# PLANTS NEEDED” column, calculate exactly how many plants of each crop you need based on how many beds of each crop you are growing. To get this number, simply multiply the # PLANTS PER BED column by the FINAL # OF BEDS NEEDED column. For example, If I need 3 final zinnia beds, and I plant 400 plants per bed: 3 * 400 = 1200. I will need 1200 total zinnia plants. You can now use these numbers to buy your seed instead of just guessing and ending up with tons of extra, or not enough.
Yay! You’re done! Look over your production plan to be sure nothing looks out of place and to check for errors. You now know with certainty how much you need to produce & how many beds of each crop you will need to plant in order to fulfill your sales projections. You also know exactly how many seeds or plants to order.
Here is an example of a production plan (this does not necessarily reflect realistic yields):
Next, you will take the numbers generated from your PRODUCTION PLAN and put them into your FIELD MAP.
YOUR FIELD MAP
Your field map is an actual map that outlines where you will plant each flower crop in the corresponding amount that you calculated during the production planning process. You will take the “Final # Beds Needed” for each flower crop and assign each to an actual growing bed on your farm.
Step 1: Look over your finalized production plan. If you have a rotation plan, group flowers by your rotation groups (flower family, spacing, nutrient requirements, bloom time, or whatever your rotation plan is based off of). If you don’t have a rotation plan, it’s not absolutely critical when you are first starting out (as long as you understand the importance of it). But now may be a good time to make one. I’ll go over more of this in a future class. If it’s helpful, use different colored highlighters to group flowers together. I group my flowers based on a combination of spacing, bloom timing, and nutrient or soil type requirements. You will plant these “groups” into “blocks” of (about) equal size on your field map. If you don’t have a set rotation schedule, you don’t have to worry about planting blocks as much.
Step 2: On either a piece of graph paper or a spreadsheet, map out your entire farm, including each growing bed. I have both a realistic map that is drawn “landscape architect style” on paper (that includes detail such as tree lines, poor-drainage areas, fences, etc.), and a spreadsheet version in excel (that only has bed numbers). Assign each growing bed a number (each bed on my farm is assigned a number, starting at #1). Don’t worry about plotting specific flowers in specific beds while doing this. Look over your map and think about how you may be able to define planting '“blocks” for your rotations. (Can you do 3 bed blocks, or 15 bed blocks? Are they for different spacings or different families?)
Step 3: Now we get to play Tetris (hello 80’s & 90’s kids). Since you know how many beds of each crop you need to plant from your production plan, simply plot them into your field map. Plant similar flowers together from your groups (step #1) into blocks. Consider different groups of flowers and different spacing requirements. For example, I use landscape fabric often in my outdoor fields. One 15’ sheet of fabric has 3 growing beds of the same spacing on it. Therefore, I group 6” spaced flowers and 9” spaced flowers together in my plan, since both 9" and 6” spaced flowers can’t both be planted in the same sheet of landscape fabric. In this example, one sheet of landscape fabric could be considered a "block” in which I only plant 3 beds of 6” spaced flowers. This block will rotate around the farm to different locations each year, to prevent planting the same flowers in the same soil year after year (and thus preventing avoidable disease issues).
Other considerations when mapping flowers:
Flower spacing
Pests & disease
Similar soil nutrition, amendments or soil requirements
Soil preparation timing and transplant timing
Full sun/partial shade/full shade requirements
Bloom/harvest timing
Staking or netting requirements
Flower family group
Tractor headway space (space needed to maneuver a tractor for things like flail mowing or dahlia digging)
Irrigation / water management
Pest management
Wind protected areas
Excessively wet (or dry) areas on your farm
Double (or triple) cropping and residue clean up
Mapping out your flowers by the number of beds per flower crop can sometimes feel like doing a puzzle. Trying to fit the right amount in can be difficult, and you often will find that you need to make changes to your plan based on spacing constraints. Or, maybe you’ll find that you can grow on less acreage than you previously have because you will plant biointensively.
Often my field map changes a bit throughout the season (as is such with all things farming), but it is really important to have a space dedicated on your farm for specific transplants or seeds to go. Without this plan in place, you may find yourself in mid June, staring at 800 zinnia transplants that are ready to go in the ground, and without an assigned bed to go into. While you rush to get ground prepared over the coming week- the transplants will get root-bound and unhealthy - which will result in less productivity, decreased yield, and increased singles (for double-petaled flowers).
You need to have a plan for exactly where each transplant will go. This is the way to do it.
YAY! We’re done with production planning and field mapping!
Again, be sure to take your time with each step and think things through deliberately. Join me next week for the FINAL part of the 4-part planning series. We will be discussing your Greenhouse Plan (which may be the most important piece of all!) and other in-season considerations.
If you’ve found this article useful, informative, or insightful, I would love it if you would share it with another flower farming friend or flower pal. I have never seen this information laid out on any other flower farming blog, podcast, book, or magazine, and I think it is SO valuable and helpful (I hope you do, too!). I’d love to help as many farm entrepreneurs as possible, but I can only do that if you help me tell others about it. THANK YOU for your help!
See you next time for part #4!
Jenny