How much does it cost to plant marigolds?
One source (Park Seed catalog, Spring 2007) lists different varieties of French and African marigold at prices ranging from $1.70 to $6.95 per 2 packets. A median price of $3.50 per 2 packets could provide about 50 seeds, assuming 25 seeds in one packet. Vann et al. (2003) recommend that plants should be planted with no more than 7 inches between plants. At that spacing, approximately 17 plants in each direction (10 ft x10 ft) would be needed to cover an area of 100 ft2. This would equal about 289 flowers/100 ft2. Costs for this type of planting would accumulate to over $20.00/100 ft2. Costs extrapolated for plants covering 1 acre would be over $9000, since approximately 131,000 plants would be needed. As mentioned above, this spacing might be useful for transplants, but additional costs would be needed to raise seeds to seedling stage for transplanting. If marigolds were directly seeded in the field in Florida, it is likely that a much higher seeding rate may be needed to account for
