What if every seed grew perfectly?
For a flower farmer, the ideal would be that everything that you planted would grow, and you’d sell everything that it produced.
I’m sure that there’s some snorting with laughter happening out there as you read that sentence, because it’s one of those “if only” situations!
BUT, how can you realise what might be happening to make your equation fail, and what can you do about it?.
First you need to know what Attrition and Wastage are.
Attrition is everything that stops a plant getting to the point where it might make a harvestable crop.
It could be Pest and Disease, Growing conditions or Lack of experience.
Perfect seedlings being given the right amount of light, water, and growing medium.
Wastage is what happens when a flower gets to the point where it is harvestable, but it doesn’t make it off the farm
it could be Poor Quality, Lack of orders, or you may have grown too much, of the wrong thing.
A whole row of Ageratum produces a lot of stems each week. If they don’t all get sold, they are wastage.
Both Attrition and Wastage are bad. They are energy drainers/ time wasters, and they make your work hard without giving you an end result.
Our next The Business of growing flowers module starts on the 3rd December.
We’re going to be looking at that holy grail of
“Growing more flowers for less work”
You can sign up to the module from Monday, so email Claire for more details or to register your interest