Emmalea Ernest, Extension Associate – Vegetable Crops; emmalea@udel.edu
I spent some time this winter revising the vegetable crop budgets, which were last updated in 2004. (Thank you to all whom I pestered by phone, email, or in person for information for the updates.) New budgets are available for processing peas, sweet corn, lima beans, snap beans, spinach and pickling cucumbers. On the fresh market side, I have completed updates for the sweet corn, and seedless and seeded watermelon budgets. I also developed budgets to calculate irrigation costs for drip irrigation systems and for diesel or electric center pivot irrigation systems.
The new budgets are available as Excel spreadsheets online at http://ag.udel.edu/extension/vegprogram/publications.htm. Each budget spreadsheet has a worksheet with estimated costs and returns and a worksheet where you can enter your actual costs and returns. The units, prices and quantities used in the calculations are easily ascertained and easily customized to your operation in the “Actual” worksheet.
I am hoping to update some more of the fresh market budgets this spring, which I will add to the website as they are completed. If you have any questions or comments about the budgets, please give me a call at (302) 856-2585 x587 or send me an email.