07/02/2007

Snapdragons a Potential Cash Cow for Small-Scale Alabama Farmers

AUBURN, Ala. — Snapdragons, a colorful staple of the florist industry, are a multi-million-dollar crop in the U.S., and research at Auburn University shows some Alabamians could start cashing in on it.

Using greenhouse-like shelters known as high tunnels, AU horticulturists have demonstrated that top-quality snapdragons can be produced year-round in Alabama.

High tunnels are arched, plastic-covered structures that provide a level of crop protection somewhere between open field conditions and greenhouses.

They can be built at a fraction of the cost of greenhouses, not only because of the cheaper cost of building materials but also because, although they must be connected to a water supply for drip irrigation, they are not equipped with electric heating or fan systems like greenhouses are. To ventilate a solar-heated high tunnel, you manually roll up the sides.

High tunnels primarily are used to help producers extend the traditional growing and selling seasons for certain horticultural crops. Early- and late-season crops can command premium prices in the marketplace.

Auburn horticulture professor Wheeler Foshee, who is leading the snapdragon study, launched his high-tunnel work four years ago with strawberries and tomatoes and since has found that early planting in high tunnels can give growers up to a two-month jump on the season with strawberries and two to three weeks with tomatoes.

The snapdragon research is an offshoot of Foshee’s work with those two crops.

“We wanted another crop, a high-value one, that we could grow in the winter months,” Foshee said.

For ideas, he turned to Raymond Kessler, the AU Department of Horticulture’s floriculture specialist, who suggested snapdragons.

“Snapdragons are extremely popular in floral arrangements year-round, and most Alabama florists have to ship them in from California,” Kessler says. “Local sources of fresh-cut, top-quality snaps obviously would be extremely attractive as an alternative.”

Foshee is conducting the snapdragon study in 20- by 96-foot high tunnels at two Alabama Agricultural Experiment Station outlying units—the Wiregrass Research and Extension Center in Headland and the E.V. Smith Research Center near Tallassee. After three years, he has found that by growing the specific snapdragon varieties that have been developed for each of the four seasons, he can harvest bumper crops of snapdragons, not just in the winter, but throughout the year.

In a 96-foot-long high tunnel, planting snapdragon transplants at what Foshee’s team has found to be an optimum spacing of three inches between plants and four inches between rows, a grower can expect to harvest an average of 3,000 snapdragons per cutting, Foshee said.

“If you figure on 80 percent of those being market grade, and a conservative price of 75 cents per stem, a grower could gross $1,800 a growing cycle,” said Foshee. A typical snapdragon cycle, from planting to harvest, is six to eight weeks.

“For a small-scale grower who wants to direct-market to florists and the wholesale industry, high-tunnel snapdragons appear to be a very good fit,” Foshee said. “With a limited initial capital investment and limited acreage, an individual can realize a strong return.”

No formal assessment of Alabama’s 600-plus retail florists has been conducted to gauge interest in locally grown snapdragons.

But local florists who we’ve taken the snapdragons we’ve produced in our high tunnels to have rated them as excellent, and our informal surveys of florists indicate that demand for Alabama snapdragons would be high,” Foshee said.

Snapdragon transplants used in the study have been provided by Ball Seed Company.

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News from:

Office of Ag Communications & Marketing

Auburn University College of Agriculture
Alabama Agricultural Experiment Station
3 Comer Hall, Auburn University
Auburn, AL 36849
334-844-4877 (PHONE) 334-844-5892 (FAX)

Contact Jamie Creamer, 334-844-2783 or jcreamer@auburn.edu

For immediate release