You have s nice selection of colors. You will probably want to add a white next season. Surprisingly, white is, by far, the biggest selling color here. Yellow is the least favorite color. For the last 5 years I haven’t been able to give away a yellow dahlia even in the fall. The color trends change over the years and you will get to know your local preferences, maybe you already do.
Carolyn did a great job of describing disbudding, and I agree, you might want to try both methods. I imagine you now have 6-8 laterals depending on how far down you topped the plants. These will be the stems you sell. As these stems grow you will notice they develop their own laterals. When these side laterals get to be about 1-3 inches long remove them by bending them down until they break off (this is cleaner and faster than “pinching” the growth off). Notice the top has a central bud with two laterals, One of these laterals will be another bud. On some of the plants, maybe leave both the central bud and the one side bud, instead of just the central bud. This will give you some leeway on the timing. If you need to hold the bloom for an extra week you will be able to remove the older central flower and allow the side bud to open. It will already be showing color so will open within a week. Disbudding is a labor-intensive job. I enjoy the mindless job of disbudding but I have to hire help to disbud because it is too much for me to handle alone.
I didn’t intend to be so wordy.
I’ll post about spraying later…
Steve