Ideas for a speciality crop

[Egon]

Not that type but on second thought prairie grass and wild flower seeds can be gathered and sold. Again it takes time.

 

[N80]

Yea, it would seem that if it doesn't take much money, time, land or effort you're going to have a hard time selling whatever it is because people will 1) be able to do it themselves or 2) can already get whatever it is real cheap.

We have folks that do the you-pick tomatoes and strawberries. I'd still think that would be pretty time consuming. There is a pumpkin patch near us that does well, but they do hay rides, school trips, apples, cider etc, etc. Its a full time affair.

There is also a place nearby that grows corn and does their own stone ground grits. But you'd need more than 10 acres, you need a mill and you'd need a cheap delivery service because you aint gone sell no grits in central Illinois!

 

[KaiB]

mmm...grits!

 

[chili]

I think you might test the waters by planting several different kinds of vegtables on about one acre and see how they sell at a farmers market. You could also see which vegtables sell best and the time to work different kinds of vegtables. It would be nice to just get on your tactor, plow, disk, plant, spray but the problem is going to be in the harvest without investing money in some specialized picker that you could pull behind you tractor.

 

[gsganzer]

How about a native wildflower plot for the seed? Someone has to be growing the seed for these wildflower mixes and the stuff is as expensive as heck. I think they must sell the wildflower seed by the gram...

I'd think that once you get a pretty solid stand of wildflower, all you have to do is harvest the seed once it matures (however the heck they do that). Surely there must be some ag publications on how to do it or the ag extension can help you find what you need to become a seed source.

I always thought seed farming would be a neat retirement career (kind of an oxymoron isn't it) for someone living in the texas hill country area. It seems like all you'd need is a good couple of acre patches (3-10 acres each) to get an intensive seed crop going of various wildflower strains for harvest.

 

[MossRoad]

Do a google search for specialty crops and illinois. There is all kinds of information out there. Broomcorn, red clover seed, peas and beans, mellons and squash are all listed. Popcorn, too. I have a friend that contracts with a local grocery chain for sweet corn. I know of another family that plants organic sweet corn. They plant one acre, then two weeks later another acre, and two weeks after that another acre. When it is almost ready, they put out a sign by the highway that it will be ready in a week. On opening day, it is a mad house. They sell an entire acre in a weekend or two at most. Then they change the signs for the next batch. All they put into it is three weekends in the spring, water it all summer, and 4 or 5 weekends towards the end of summer.