12/1/2021
Floriculture Crops Summary Will Now Include All 50 States
Dr. Marvin Miller
The National Agricultural Statistics Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA/NASS) has reported some major changes that will soon be delivering a new survey coming to a mailbox near you. NASS has decided to collect data for the Floriculture Crops Summary from growers in all 50 states on an annual basis, beginning with the report coming out next spring based on 2021 production and sales.
In the largest single expansion of data in the report’s history, NASS will provide data separately for 28 states and then group the remaining 22 states as an “all other states” subtotal, thereby providing the total for the entire country. The 28 states that will be individually enumerated are: Alabama, Alaska, California, Connecticut, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin. These state breakouts will be across the cut flower, potted flowering plant, foliage plant, bedding/garden plant, cut cultivated greens and plant propagative materials categories. And for the first time in this report, sales data will be reported as retail sales, wholesale sales and total sales, rather than converting all sales to a wholesale sales equivalent, as has been done in the past.
NASS will also be increasing the number of crops separately enumerated in the annual survey. Added to the bedding/garden plants data will be separate tallies for calibrachoa, geraniums produced from seeds or plugs, interspecific hybrid impatiens (NASS was already collecting data for New Guinea impatiens and “Impatiens other,” which is essentially I. walleriana), and vinca (catharanthus), among the flowering annuals. These will be added to data for begonias, geraniums produced from vegetative cuttings, marigolds, pansies/violas and petunias, as well as the already-mentioned two categories of impatiens.
Vegetable-type bedding plants will be expanded to collect separate data for tomatoes, peppers and other vegetable-type bedding plants. Data for the sales of herbs will also be collected for the first time. And the perennial category—which was already represented by hardy/garden chrysanthemums, daylilies, hardy/garden ferns, hostas and peonies—will be expanded to include separate tallies for dianthus, lavender, salvia (perennial) and sedum.
Joining the ranks of separately enumerated potted flowering plants—which already included florist chrysanthemums, Easter lilies, orchids (all), poinsettias, potted florist roses and potted spring flowering bulbs—will be begonias, hibiscus (potted), hydrangeas and other lilies. For the first time ever, the foliage plant category will be expanded to include individual sums for bromeliad, cacti and succulents, dracaena, ferns (tropical fern potted), and palms.
The cut flower list already included separate totals for pompon chrysanthemum, dahlia, gerbera daisy, gladioli, iris, lilies (all), orchids (all), peony, roses (all), snapdragon, sunflower and tulips. The list will be augmented to include aster, delphinium/larkspur, lisianthus, protea and wax flowers.
USDA plans to mail questionnaires to growers in all 50 states at the end of this month (December) and continue data collection through the end of February. The Floriculture Crops: 2021 Summary will be issued on May 25, 2022. GT