Just in Case – Crop Buffers

Build Crop Buffers Into Your System

Resilient crop plans include room to adapt. One of the main ways we do this is through crop buffers.

Buffers refer to excess crop sowed above and beyond your order needs. Here we will take look at some methods of using buffers.

Buffer Trays

The simplest buffer option is to literally sow extra trays each week to ensure you have more crop than you need. A common way to do this is by percentage. A 10% buffer means for every ten trays you need to fulfill your orders, you will sow one extra as a buffer.

Rounding Up

When you are doing your crop calculations, you will typically end up with something like like “6.4 trays needed.” Since it makes no sense to sow .4 of a tray, and rounding down to 6 trays would result in a crop shortfall, always round up to the nearest whole tray.

This method will result in varying buffers. 6.1 trays and 6.9 trays both round up to 7 trays, but give different buffer amounts.

Shifting Samples

If you are growing samples to entice prospective customers, you can also use these as a buffer if you have a crop shortfall. The logic here is you are prioritizing existing customers over potential customers.

Label Weight vs Packing Weight

Another natural buffer method is to have a packing weight which is higher than your label weight. For example, if you sell 100 g units of sunflower shoots, you can use 105 g or 110 grams as your calculation weight. This is similar to the general buffer above, but calculated in a different way.

Final Thoughts

Buffers are an essential but simple tool for new growers to ensure you always have enough crop to meet your order needs. It can sometimes mean you have more crop than you need, but also makes it less likely you will lose a sale and the important revenue that comes with it.

That said, producing so much extra crop that you are generating a lot of waste can also be costly – so tracking your expected and actual crop needs each week will help you fine tune your buffer system.