Journal Article

Estimated Nursery Liner Production Costs for Woody Ornamental Plant Stock

Jeffers, Andrew H, Kopsell, Dean A, Klingeman, William E, Buckley, David S, Palma, Marco A, Hall, Charles R

2010

Overview

Ornamental plant growers must be able to accurately assess production costs associated with woody liner stock to gain profit potential in a highly competitive industry. Fixed and variable cost inputs may not be intuitive or readily apparent to growers and may even differ between common types of production in the trade. To help liner producers identify profit-based price points for their woody ornamental liner stock, we modeled costs associated with producing familiar species and cultivars of a representative deciduous shade tree, a broadleaf evergreen, and a needle leaf evergreen liner. Production costs are projected down to individual plant units for each of the three most common liner production systems, including a field ground bed system, a polyhouse-covered (plant protection structure sheathed with one layer of 6-mil polyethylene film) ground bed system, and a polyhouse-covered container system. Production costs for individual plants varied due to the actual growing space available within each system. The field ground bed system offered greatest flexibility in crop planting density, with cost potentially distributed among the largest number of salable units. In addition to modeled costs, advantages and disadvantages of each liner cropping system are discussed.

• Publisher: American Society for Horticultural Science
• Subject: Agricultural production / container-grown plants / Cost control / Cost estimates / costs and returns / Crops / Cultivars / Deciduous trees / greenhouse production / hired labor / nursery stock / Ornamental plants / ornamental woody plants / Pine needles / Plant protection / Planting density / plastic greenhouses / Production costs / profit maximization / Salvage value / Southeastern United States / Wages & salaries