Fresh or dried cut flowers: what published budgets say about income and margin

What to take away

What the published budgets cover

Extension budgets are planning tools. Each states its assumptions and tells users to change them. They are the best sourced numbers available, and they are small.

Source: Utah State University Extension budgets, linked below. The snapdragon figure is the total of two harvest periods in one year. Peonies take at least three years to establish, then produce for years 4 to 20. The field peony budget sells through a local co-op for a fee of 30 percent of revenue, counted as an expense, and spreads $2,151.71 of establishment cost over the 17 production years ($190.88 a year). Check the tunnel budget for its own assumptions before comparing the two.

Do not multiply these figures up to an acre. A person can harvest, bunch and sell only so much, and labor, cooling and selling time rise with scale.

The University of Tennessee's budgets (publication W1348, October 2025) show how a bigger enterprise is framed. They cover zinnia, sunflower, cosmos, celosia and gomphrena on a quarter-acre farm run by one full-time worker. Each crop gets a 1,000 square foot plot. Marketing cost is set at 20 percent of gross sales, and returns to land, ownership and capital at 10 percent of total variable costs. The budgets are spreadsheets, so you can enter your own prices and sell-through. The costing and pricing guide shows how to turn those inputs into a price per bunch.

What the dried-flower evidence shows

Statice is the best documented dried crop. Utah State University Extension's September 2025 fact sheet calls it nearly dry in the field at harvest, so it does not need hanging. It says selling statice both fresh and dried raises its value, and that unsold fresh bunches can be dried for late-season sales in arrangements or wreaths.

The same fact sheet reports a wholesale price of $1.00 to $1.20 per stem in Utah's Cache Valley and Wasatch Front floral markets, for both fresh and dried stems. It also reports 2024 wholesale import prices of $0.65 to $1.05 per stem, citing USDA's Agricultural Marketing Service. Across its farm sites, yields ranged from 8.3 to 15.3 stems per plant, and marketable share ranged from 50 to 84.6 percent.

Read that carefully. Dried statice was not quoted at a premium per stem. The fact sheet's own point is that unsold stems can be saved and dried for later-season sales, so a poor market day does not have to turn the crop into waste.

The weak side shows in the New Jersey trial. Chickadee Creek Farm tested several dried and fresh-use products in 2018 under a SARE Northeast grant. Its report gives these results:

The report projected only $2.56 net if all seven statice bunches had sold, and it values labor at $20 an hour. It ranked dried rye bunches above dried statice on net profit, and chile ristras last. It also notes that 2018 was the wettest year on record in New Jersey. The farm planned to keep making sorghum wreaths and to keep exploring dried floral sales with recognizable crops such as lavender, statice and rye. One trial on one farm cannot say whether dried flowers pay on yours, but it shows the risk: labor minutes per bunch can outrun the price.

The arithmetic from the report makes the point. About 139 minutes for 7 bunches is roughly 20 minutes per bunch. If all 7 had sold at $7, sales per labor hour would be about $21, barely above the $20 an hour the report assigns to labor. With 3 sold, it was about $9.

Fresh against dried, line by line

Nebraska Extension's guide to drying flowers names yarrow, baby's breath, statice and strawflower as suitable for air drying. It tells growers to hang small bunches upside down in a dark, dry, well-ventilated place. Strawflowers can also dry without stems on a screen. Zinnias and dahlias are listed for desiccant drying, which takes 1 to 3 weeks and uses silica gel or a borax and cornmeal mix. That method suits small craft items more than farm volume.

Utah State's marketing overview lists channel facts that apply to both products. Cooperatives that sell to florists take 30 to 40 percent of sales. Direct sales usually return higher margins than wholesale. Farmers markets give immediate cash but demand heavy setup and selling labor and offer limited access to coolers and water. See the sales channel guide to match either product to a channel.

When each product makes sense

Fresh cuts fit farms with a nearby buyer who takes stems weekly and a way to keep them cool. Dried stock fits farms with dry storage space, a slow late season and a place to sell, such as craft markets or a flower shop that stocks dried bunches. Editorial suggestion: treat dried flowers as a salvage and winter line first, not a replacement for fresh sales, until your own records show a margin.

Season length decides how much of either you can grow. The hardiness zone and calendar guide explains frost dates, and the succession planting guide shows how to spread harvests. How you cool and condition stems before sale affects fresh losses, covered in harvest and conditioning.

A one-season test for dried flowers

Sources