WSARE 2000 Farmer/Rancher Grants-FW00-017
TITLE: Establishing a Sustainable Program
for Recycling and Propagation of Quality Flower Bulbs in a Wholesale Flower Production Operation
| Producer: Laura Smith | Phone: (406) 586-7957 |
| Technical Advisor: Andrew Lenssen | Phone: (406) 994-7267 |
 Blue Moon Wholesale Growers produces specialty cut flowers such as tulips |
Blue Moon Wholesale Growers spends one third of their gross sales purchasing Dutch bulbs for flower production. Twenty percent of this money is spent on the cost of shipping the bulbs to Montana, where Blue Moon Growers is located. With the aid of a Western SARE Farmer/Rancher Research grant, Blue Moon owners Laura Smith and Robert Dunn are conducting an experiment on the possibility of recycling and producing their own bulbs.
The bulbs will be recycled by keeping them in cold storage through the winter before the spring planting season. Smith and Dunn have already conducted preliminary studies and have found that if the bulbs are handled properly throughout the recycling period, they will produce a bulb and bloom as good as the original product at half the cost. They plan to measure their results based on cost per bulb plus shipping from the bulb broker versus cost per bulb from their field operation. Their findings will be presented at the national meeting of the Association of Specialty Cut Flowers Growers (ASCFG).