PH,
You're doing a great job! What varieties of Karma Dahlias are you growing?
A few questions/things to consider:
Are you planning on disbudding and selling stems without side growth or are you selling stems with lateral growth and buds in addition to the terminal flower? Your plants are very consistent in size and, since you topped them all at the same time, you might get a huge flush of flowers all at about the same time and make marketing more of a challenge. You want to aim for a consistent supply throughout the season. Maybe experiment with a few plants and disbud each lateral down 2-3 nodes (depending on variety). This will give you longer stems, slightly larger flowers, and start the next flush of blooms sooner (and help stagger the crop).
All growers here (So Cal) sell bunches of 5 stems. I think you might get a better price per stem if you do 5/bunch instead of 10. It is a psychological thing - 2 bunches of 5 stems look like more flowers than one bunch of 10.
Have you started a spray program?
Good luck on your venture!
Steve
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