but i like to make sure i have a buyer before doing so. The area i'll be growing in is ver very fertile ground located between lake maurepas and lake pontchartrain. anybody know where i would be able to sell large quantity of peppers/plants/seeds?
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chinense i'd like to grow an acre or so of moruga scorpions
- Thread starter da-cajun-angla
- Start date
on to phase II....locating seeds 
yall wouldnt believe how fertile the soil is!!! plus we have 6 hives...i'll be uploading the vid of the hives today.
yall wouldnt believe how fertile the soil is!!! plus we have 6 hives...i'll be uploading the vid of the hives today.
good luck finding the seeds for that. lmao!
LOL, wouldn't we all like to do such things! 
Chiles are perishable, I'd find a good buyer before even planting a seed. Moruga scorpions are no harder to grow than other peppers but you may be able to ride the bandwagon for a while and sell them for more since they are the new hottest thing.
I personally have had a very hard time selling superhots locally, and shipping them can be even more of a hastle especially in the hot summer
Good luck
I personally have had a very hard time selling superhots locally, and shipping them can be even more of a hastle especially in the hot summer
Good luck
no chit, its a damn shame people are so sheisty. i need to find a good, reputable supplier for seeds.
Personally I would contact Baker Creek or Seed Savers and speak to someone on the phone. You may be able to personally e-mail Jere at Baker Creek. rareseeds.com They would probably give you an idea of a truthful seller so you wouldn't get screwed !
The biggest concern (if you get to the growing stage) should be preservation. If you don't have them pre-sold they spoil pretty quickly. And if my experience is typical, peppers like habs, Bhuts and other superhots tend to spoil/rot faster than jalapeños or serranos. The thin skin & all the oils - once its off the plant it's a quick ride to necrosis of the fruit's skin.
And that funk spreads FAST. I once picked up 3 lbs of orange habs at a farmer's market & there was one funky one I saw drop in the bag & thought, "meh, I'll pull it out when I get home" - by the time I got home an hour later about 50 had the funk. (basically rot/over ripening)
An acre of superhots could be a good sell - but the problem for a guy like me is that while I'd love to say "awesome! I'll buy em up & make a superhot sauce!" I can't because the seasonality makes it a dicey business proposition. If I develop a recipe I want infredients that are accessible year-round. You're going to shoot your wad on a monster harvest. If I had the $$$ to buy you out & take a risk of doing a seasonal 4th label I would - but even that's tough as I'd have to time it perfectly with my co-packer. And even then I'm not sure how many I'd need - a lb of those is far different from a lb of orange habs - so is need less from you than if you grew habs or jalapeños.
I'd be willing to bet that as expensive as those peppers can be you'd make a lot more $ growing an acre of jalapenos. Boring, sure - but more marketable, more durable & less investment for the seed.
Good luck whatever you do though!
And that funk spreads FAST. I once picked up 3 lbs of orange habs at a farmer's market & there was one funky one I saw drop in the bag & thought, "meh, I'll pull it out when I get home" - by the time I got home an hour later about 50 had the funk. (basically rot/over ripening)
An acre of superhots could be a good sell - but the problem for a guy like me is that while I'd love to say "awesome! I'll buy em up & make a superhot sauce!" I can't because the seasonality makes it a dicey business proposition. If I develop a recipe I want infredients that are accessible year-round. You're going to shoot your wad on a monster harvest. If I had the $$$ to buy you out & take a risk of doing a seasonal 4th label I would - but even that's tough as I'd have to time it perfectly with my co-packer. And even then I'm not sure how many I'd need - a lb of those is far different from a lb of orange habs - so is need less from you than if you grew habs or jalapeños.
I'd be willing to bet that as expensive as those peppers can be you'd make a lot more $ growing an acre of jalapenos. Boring, sure - but more marketable, more durable & less investment for the seed.
Good luck whatever you do though!
This was sort of written for humor but worth a read
http://www.fiery-foods.com/article-archives/88-humor/3176-so-you-want-to-be-a-pepper-farmer
http://www.fiery-foods.com/article-archives/88-humor/3176-so-you-want-to-be-a-pepper-farmer
AlabamaJack
Extreme Member
I will offer a bit of advice as a result of me growing scorpions on a large scale last year...
yes, the plants will get very large and your first harvest will be in June if you get them in the ground by the middle of March, but...in the heat, those harvested pods will need to be either a) delivered to a buyer within 36 hours or b) refrigerated....
you know you are talking about 5,000-6000 plants right...and once you start harvesting in June, you will want to harvest every 10 days or so....who's gonna pick them?...yourself?...harvesting an acre of peppers will take at least 100 man hours...and don't let them go red ripe before harvesting...harvest when they start turning ripe color...
you need seed and it seems your decision to grow has been kinda hastily put out there...it's not easy...what I would do is grow your seedstock this year in isolation and not have to buy your seeds...you will pay at least $250/1000 seeds unless you know someone really well...
then it's starting the plants...do you have a setup to start 6000-7000 seeds? you should plan on a 75-80% germination rate if you are an experienced grower...have you got a large greenhouse? or do you have the lighting setup required for such a big grow....
If I ever grow plants on a large scale again, I won't plant a seed until the whole crop is price per pound agreed upon, they are contracted for sale and a contract signed...you just can't take the "word" of the large buyers in the industry...a lot of them will himhaw around, say yes, they are interested, then come harvest time balk on their verbal comittment...
and if you think you are going to get 30-50 dollars a pound for volume, think again...about $12 a pound is about as much as the wholesale market will stand for fresh pods...
dehydrating them will help you conserve your crop, but do you have a huge commercial dehydrator?
not trying to be a stick in the mud here, just sharing some of my experiences with you...
then if you want to keep your customers, you should get them to sign a non-use agreement of the seeds of those peppers...several large suppliers will buy pods, especially if they are isolated for seedstock, then next year grow them in South America and they don't buy from you anymore...
yes, the plants will get very large and your first harvest will be in June if you get them in the ground by the middle of March, but...in the heat, those harvested pods will need to be either a) delivered to a buyer within 36 hours or b) refrigerated....
you know you are talking about 5,000-6000 plants right...and once you start harvesting in June, you will want to harvest every 10 days or so....who's gonna pick them?...yourself?...harvesting an acre of peppers will take at least 100 man hours...and don't let them go red ripe before harvesting...harvest when they start turning ripe color...
you need seed and it seems your decision to grow has been kinda hastily put out there...it's not easy...what I would do is grow your seedstock this year in isolation and not have to buy your seeds...you will pay at least $250/1000 seeds unless you know someone really well...
then it's starting the plants...do you have a setup to start 6000-7000 seeds? you should plan on a 75-80% germination rate if you are an experienced grower...have you got a large greenhouse? or do you have the lighting setup required for such a big grow....
If I ever grow plants on a large scale again, I won't plant a seed until the whole crop is price per pound agreed upon, they are contracted for sale and a contract signed...you just can't take the "word" of the large buyers in the industry...a lot of them will himhaw around, say yes, they are interested, then come harvest time balk on their verbal comittment...
and if you think you are going to get 30-50 dollars a pound for volume, think again...about $12 a pound is about as much as the wholesale market will stand for fresh pods...
dehydrating them will help you conserve your crop, but do you have a huge commercial dehydrator?
not trying to be a stick in the mud here, just sharing some of my experiences with you...
then if you want to keep your customers, you should get them to sign a non-use agreement of the seeds of those peppers...several large suppliers will buy pods, especially if they are isolated for seedstock, then next year grow them in South America and they don't buy from you anymore...
Growing large quantities of peppers seems appealing until you get down to the nuts and bolts of it. You could very easily end up with 5000 plants, assuming you have the means to get that many in the ground, and no sustainable market. I believe we have seen here that these little forum auctions only sell a limited amount, to a limited amount of people.
In some cases supply can outpace demand, which is never good in a highly perishable product class like produce.
In some cases supply can outpace demand, which is never good in a highly perishable product class like produce.
+1 to everything that AJ said. Especially the part about getting the contracts negotiated and signed before putting a single seed in the ground. Customers will be knocking at your door constantly asking for pods through the winter and spring, and sure enough as soon as harvest season hits they disappear or have "money problems".
Also, if you have a greenhouse I hope you have a few years of experience with controlling their environments before attempting to start all of these plants. One screw-up on your environmental controls can cost you an entire year's worth of work.
Also, if you have a greenhouse I hope you have a few years of experience with controlling their environments before attempting to start all of these plants. One screw-up on your environmental controls can cost you an entire year's worth of work.
I just put up my new website a few weeks ago and in just one week, I got a phone call from a guy that said he could easily buy all the peppers I could produce. In fact, he said if I was growing 4 times as many plants as I have, he could easily buy those too. He was making hot sauce and wanted scorpions in particular. What he wanted to pay though was not such a great deal. If I made powder out of my peppers, that was best for him and he was offering $50 for a pound of powder. It might take about 500 to 700 pods to make a pound of powder, so that didn't sound like such a great deal, but, it was interesting that I would get someone to contact me so fast. I told him I wasn't ready for such a thing, and he said he would call me again in a month, so if that sounds like a deal to you, I can certainly give him your info.
On the seeds, I probably have enough to plant out an acre. If I don't, most are ready now and the rest will be ready in the next month. At least the seeds will come from isolated plants, were grown organically, and each flower was personally hand pollinated by myself, so the quality of the seeds would at least be good. Tom
On the seeds, I probably have enough to plant out an acre. If I don't, most are ready now and the rest will be ready in the next month. At least the seeds will come from isolated plants, were grown organically, and each flower was personally hand pollinated by myself, so the quality of the seeds would at least be good. Tom
Tom, like I said before, don't be surprised when you never here from that buyer again. After a few years of doing this the most valuable lesson that I have learned so far is that 90% of the people that come looking for peppers are just blowing smoke. Eventually you will get a few valued customers, but most of the time when someone calls and says that they want every pod you can grow, be very, very wary! A lot of them fancy themselves wholesale distributors and when it comes time to make the deal they realize they either cant find retail buyers willing to pay an inflated price or they have no way to distribute the pods before they rot.
I've found some sauce-makers who will buy tonnes of pods, but they always want them all at once and they want to pay around $5/ pound
I actually sold lots at $5 just to get rid of pods before they rotted but that won't pay the bills
Yep! Like I said, as a saucemaker's it's the only way it would work for me. "gimme 100 lbs of pods at once, all perfectly ripe and on the 7th of July (as that's when I've reserved my copacker's production kitchen)."
There is no trickling in of peppers that would work for me. And moreover I'd need to be able to call virtually year round to obtain pods in my exact qtys. South America has a much longer harvest season as I understand it. So even if your soil is great, your non-equatorial sunshine puts you at a disadvantage.
Plus as AJ said, labor costs are a nightmare already. Now compare them with labor costs of a farmer in say, costa rica.
My ag-hort background is in greenhouse management....I ran rose nurseries in Holland for 2 years & orchid nurseries in CA for about 3 as a grower. And what's been cautioned there is spot on. The best & worse thing about greenhouses is that you're 100% in control of the environment. Oops, my whitewash was too thin - I just burned the hell outta 3000 seedlings. Oops, I didn't realize how much pots, drip lines, butane heaters, fans, pesticide, fungicide & fertilizer cost. Oops, I didn't plan on having powdery mildew wipe out 1/2 my crop overnight. Oops, I didn't know that by the time I've got that plant in the ground that I'd already invested $$$ in it.
By the time you've grown your plants big enough to get into the ground you've invested hunderds of hours in potting, watering, transplanting, feeding, heating and cooling your plants. And even if you do it perfectly, 10% will be substandard & another 10% will die. So calculate how much all that's going to cost & take 20% and write "garbage" next to it in your ledger.
Also, not mentioned is the time/effort/cost of planting those bad boys in the ground. Yeesh. Hundreds of hours more - all sunk costs - that acre will owe you a lot of money long before your first flower pops.
I once wrote a business plan for growing hot peppers, but I thought it would be better to grow them as plant rentals for restaurants. Nice little 6" potted African Devils or Cayannes, pinched a lot so they're compact & bushy...when they're laden with peppers rent them to restaurants as an edible ornamental.
Of course you need a greenhouse, but you'd need one for your idea too - and THEN you get to grow outdoors. Have fun learning the formulas for increasing the nitrogen on your acre's tilth depth by 8% when your tractor moves 3 mph and has a 250 gal tank. How many times will you have to fill it and at what concentrate? Ah, I don't miss my soil science teacher at all.
I guess my point here is pimpin is easy as hell. Farming ain't easy!