Echinacea angustifolia Planting and Harvesting
Answered by: Inge Poot and Conrad Richter
Question from: Tara
Posted on: October 26, 2010

I will want to plant some plug trays of Echinacea angustifolia. I live in coastal southern BC, Canada and do have full sun, so I think that it could be a good crop to grow. Plus, I think that its an amazing plant!

As we are looking into farm status (due end of October.) We need to have a plan of how much echinacea to plant.

I would strongly recommend that you get "Echinacea: Technical Crop Report/" because it has much valuable data on E. angustifolia cultivation. The report is available here:

http://www.richters.com/Web_store/web_store.cgi?product=XB4670-002

Echiacea do not like competition so planting them in rows 3 feet(1m) apart and spaced 6 inches (15cm) apart within the row would be optimum spacing.

I am wondering either, per plant or per acre, how much Echinacea angustifolia one might expect to harvest when it becomes mature (about 3 years?).

The above mentioned technical crop report says that typical yields are 2,800 lbs dried root per acre.

Also, as seeds are valuable, per hundred plants or per acre, is there an estimate of how much might be harvestable per year?

We have no data, but you would not be able to get seed until year 2 and 3 and perhaps an estimate of one tenth the dry weight as being seeds might not be unreasonable.

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