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10 Most Profitable Specialty Crops to Grow

Growing specialty crops is the perfect way to turn your gardening skills and knowledge into extra income. Unlike commonly grown crops like grain and vegetables, specialty crops are not widely grown and bring higher prices for growers. It’s not unusual to find growers earning as much as $60,000 per acre with these unique cash crops.

All of the 10 specialty crops listed in this article are easy to grow and produce above average income from a small plot of land. Best of all, most of them can be grown without working full-time. If you can spare just a few hours a week, and a few hundred dollars for seeds or seedlings and supplies, you can grow any one of these profitable plants. Here are ten specialty crops worth growing:

1. Lavender

 Lavender

Lavender farming can produce above-average profits for small growers, as it is such a versatile crop. The fresh flowers are sold in bundles or used for lavender oil. The flowers are also easy to dry, for sales to florists and crafters to make wreaths and floral arrangements. Lavender is also used to make value-added products such as sachets, herbal pillows, aromatherapy products and skin care products like soap. That’s the charm of growing lavender…nothing is wasted.

2. Gourmet mushrooms

 Gourmet mushrooms

Mushrooms are an ideal specialty crop for urban farmers, as they are grown indoors and produce a very high return per square foot. The two most widely grown gourmet mushrooms are oyster and shiitake, which are available fresh or dried in many grocery stores. Oyster mushrooms are especially productive, and can produce up to 25 pounds per square foot of growing area every year. At current prices of $7 a pound, that’s $17,500 worth of harvest from a 10 x 10 space. Although both oyster and shiitake can be dried, most are sold fresh – an advantage for local growers who supply grocery stores and individuals at farmer’s markets.

3. Woody ornamentals

Woody ornamentals

Also known as woody stems, woodies are trees and shrubs whose branches are harvested and sold to florists and individuals for arrangements and craft products such as wreaths. Most woodies have colorful stems, like Red Twig dogwood, odd stems like curly willow or stems with attractive berries, buds or flowers. Some of the well-known woodies include holly in winter, pussy willows in spring and forsythia and hydrangeas in late spring and summer. Unlike annual plants like vegetables, woodies can be harvested over and over again for decades, and produce a year-round harvest and income as different species are ready to harvest during all four seasons.

4. Landscaping trees and shrubs

Landscaping trees and shrubs

Trees and shrubs used for landscaping are a very profitable specialty crop for small growers, as the profit margins are huge and a large number of container plants can be grown in a small area. For example, 1,500 two-gallon potted trees or shrubs can be grown in just 1,000 square feet. Seedlings for most popular landscaping trees and shrubs are available from wholesale growers for less than a dollar each. Add another fifty cents for a plastic pot and soil, wait two years, and you’ve got a $15 plant. That’s a 750% markup, and that’s not uncommon for this profitable specialty crop.

5. Bonsai plants

Bonsai plants

From tiny trees the size of a finger to mature maples and pines just 18 inches high, the world of bonsai is full of surprises. Because the hobby of bonsai is enjoying widespread and growing popularity, there is opportunity for new growers to sell bonsai trees and shrubs to hobbyists and collectors. Most commercial bonsai growers specialize in one of four areas – starter trays of several young, untrained trees or shrubs, starter plants in individual pots, trained plants that have been trained to their first ceramic pot, and specimen plants that can bring hundreds of dollars from collectors. Becoming a bonsai grower requires very little growing area, as the plants are so compact, and a few hundred dollars for seeds or seedlings and supplies.

6. Japanese maples

For hundreds of years, Japanese maples have been grown and admired by gardeners who view them as the ultimate collector’s tree because of their unique beauty. Because most retail garden centers don’t have room to display very many varieties, a small specialty grower who focuses on them can prosper with Japanese maples. Also, because Japanese maples are small trees, they can be grown in containers to allow more varieties to be grown in a small space – ideal for those with a limited growing area. With high prices and limited supply, these beautiful trees can become a profitable niche for a patient grower.

7. Willows

Willows

This trouble-free tree is easy to grow and maintain, and the shoots, also called rods, and catkins enjoy a strong demand. Florists use the stems for arrangements and wreaths, and crafters use the shoots for basketry and other fiber arts, such as garden trellises and rustic willow furniture. A recent University of Kentucky report found growers could harvest 4-5 tons of willow shoots per acre, which bring $7 a pound from basket weavers. That works out to $56,000 per acre.

8. Garlic

Garlic

The payoff on growing garlic can be big for those who grow “gourmet” garlic. There are 3 types of gourmet garlic, also called hardneck garlic. They are Rocambole, Purplestripe and Porcelain, and once you have experienced their superior flavor, you’ll never want to go back to ordinary garlic again. That’s why customers are willing to pay high prices – as much as $10 a pound – to get their favorite varieties. Another grower and customer favorite is Elephant garlic, whose large, mild cloves bring $6-$8 per pound. In good soil, an acre of Elephant garlic can yield 15,000 pounds. It is very hard to lose a crop of garlic crop, as it tolerates a wide range of soil and weather conditions. That’s why some growers  call garlic the “mortgage lifter.”

9. Bamboo

Bamboo

This amazing plant, a member of the grass family, has long been a landscaping favorite, as landscapers can pick a species of bamboo ranging from dwarf Sasa bamboo that is barely a foot tall, to giant timber bamboo that can reach 75 feet in height. By growing container bamboo for landscapers and homeowners, digging is eliminated, and the plants take up far less space. In fact, over 600 bamboo plants in 5-gallon pots can be grown in a 30′ x 40′ space. Container landscaping bamboo brings high prices too, with the average plant fetching $$45.

10. Herbs

Herbs

 

The use of herbs has enjoyed impressive growth in the last two decades as more people began using fresh herbs for cooking, medicinal herbs and value-added herbal products such as soaps, candles, teas and bath oils. The biggest herb demand is for fresh culinary herbs for grocery stores and restaurants. Quite a few growers also supply new and regular customers at the saturday farmer’s markets. A popular value-added item there is a 4-herb windowsill size “instant’ herb garden, ready to start snipping. Other growers find dried culinary herbs in packets sell well at the farmer’s market. With hundreds of choices, including a broad range of ethnic herbs for serious cooks, growers can thrive with fresh herbs.

These are ten of my favorite specialty crops, because they all can produce a sizable income every year, are in demand, and can be grown by anyone with a bit of common sense and basic gardening skills. Any one of these profitable plants could bring both personal and financial rewards to new growers. You’ll find more information about lavender, woody ornamentals, and trees on this web site. Visit our companion site, www.profitableplants.com, to discover more about growing oyster mushrooms, garlic, bamboo and herbs.

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Science

Top 10 Space Stories of the Decade

10. Saturn Moon Titan Explored

Saturn Moon Titan Explored

On Jan. 14, 2005, the European Space Agency’s Huygens probe dropped through Titan’s atmosphere after a seven-year trek attached to NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. Huygens wasn’t designed to live for very long after atmospheric reentry, but it unveiled a mysterious outer solar system world to us for the first time.

Before this mission, very little was known about Saturn’s largest moon, and scientists were unsure whether Huygens would land on a rocky surface or in an ocean. Titan’s thick atmosphere  composed of primarily nitrogen and clouds of methane and ethane, about 50 percent thicker than our atmosphere signaled to scientists that Titan was similar to a young Earth.

Observations from the Huygens probe and Cassini spacecraft tell us that Titan and Earth share many features, such as sand dunes and lakes. But these features are heavily laced with organic molcules that could support life, leading researchers to speculate about Titan’s potential to nurture microbes.

9. Moon Water Confirmed

Moon Water Confirmed

India’s Chandrayaan-1 satellite confirmed the presence of water on the moon in September 2009, building on flyby observations by other probes on their way elsewhere. Although the lunar surface is still drier than Earth’s driest desert, evidence of water is there, hinting at a solar wind interaction with the moon’s surface that produces water and hydroxyl molecules.

It may not be an oasis up there, but future moon colonists could extract and purify the traces of water from the surface to use for drinking, food cultivation, oxygen and fuel. Or, our colonists could take a trek to the moon’s poles to mine water from the deepest craters

On Oct. 9, 2009, NASA dropped a spent rocket into a crater to produce a 100-foot-wide hole. They found water there too. That rocket produced a massive plume of dust that was analyzed by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and ground-based observatories. At least 25 gallons of water ice was detected in the plume.

8. Organic Chemistry Collected from Comet’s Tail

 Organic Chemistry Collected from Comet's Tail

In 2004, the NASA Stardust mission chased after Comet Wild 2 to find out if the icy mass contained the building blocks for life, since meteorites found on Earth contained organic chemistry that originated from space. Sure enough, in August 2009, NASA announced that they had found samples of glycine  an amino acid  in Stardust’s collection plates. It didn’t stop there, there’s increasing evidence that exoplanets orbiting distant stars contain organic chemistry in their atmospheres.

In 2008, organic chemicals were detected in the disk surrounding a star called HR 4796A, 220 light-years from Earth. And most recently, NASA’s Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes detected carbon dioxide, methane and water vapor in the atmosphere of an exoplanet called HD 209458b.

These discoveries, sparked by Stardust, have transformed our understanding about how life may have formed on Earth. They also give us a strong hint that life may not be unique to Earth; the universe appears to be manufacturing organic chemistry everywhere.

7. A Supermassive Black Hole on Our Doorstep

A Supermassive Black Hole on Our Doorstep

There’s a monster living in the center of our galaxy, 26,000 light-years from Earth. By 2008, astronomers tracking the behavior of stars orbiting an invisible point confirmed that the monster is a supermassive black hole called Sagittarius A.

A lone star called “S2,” with a very fast orbit, has been tracked since 1995 around this invisible point. In 2002, Rainer Schödel and his team at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics announced that the only explanation for S2’s fast orbit was that it was circling a very compact, massive object  a supermassive black hole  that was stopping the star from flinging out of its orbit into space.

In 2008, after S2 completed one 16-year orbit, it was confirmed that the star was orbiting a black hole with a gargantuan mass of approximately 4.3 million suns. The confirmation of a supermassive black hole in the center of the Milky Way boosted the theory that most galaxies contain a supermassive black hole at their cores.

6. Big Bang “Echo” Mapped for the First Time

Big Bang "Echo" Mapped for the First Time

In June 2001, NASA set out to find the ancient “echo” of the Big Bang by mapping the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation that buzzes like static throughout the cosmos, using the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) .

When the universe was born, vast amounts of energy were unleashed, which eventually condensed into the stuff that makes up the mass of what we see today. The radiation that was created by the Big Bang still exists, but as faint microwaves.

By mapping slight variations in the CMB radiation, the probe has been able to precisely measure the age of the universe (13.73 billion years old) and work out that a huge 96 percent of the mass of the universe is made up of stuff we cannot see. Only 4 percent of the cosmic mass is held in the stars and galaxies we observe; the rest is held in “dark energy” and “dark matter.”

5. Hubble Gets to Grips with Dark Energy

Hubble Gets to Grips with Dark Energy

In 2002, the Hubble Space Telescope was upgraded with a new instrument, the Advanced Camera for Surveys, that revealed the presence of a mysterious force called “dark energy.”

The camera was set up to help researchers understand why Type Ia supernovae were dimmer than expected. Hubble’s observations of these supernovae discovered that they weren’t dimmer because the stars were different (they should all explode with the same brightness). The only explanation was that the universe’s expansion was unexpectedly and inexplicably speeding up. This accelerated expansion was making the light dim over vast cosmic distances. Hubble’s discovery led to a better understanding of what dark energy is — an invisible force that opposes gravity, causing the universe’s expansion to speed up.

4. Eris Discovered; Pluto Demoted

Eris Discovered; Pluto Demoted

In January 2005, Mike Brown and his team at Palomar Observatory, Calif. discovered 136199 Eris, a minor body that is 27 percent bigger than Pluto. Eris had trumped Pluto and become the 9th largest body known to orbit the sun.

In 2006, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) decided that the likelihood of finding more small rocky bodies in the outer solar system was so high that the definition “a planet” needed to be reconsidered. The end result: Pluto was reclassified as a dwarf planet and it acquired a “minor planet designator” in front of its name: “134340 Pluto.”

Mike Brown’s 2005 discovery of Eris was the trigger that changed the face of our solar system, defining the planets and adding Pluto to a growing family of dwarf planets.

3. Dark Matter Detected

Dark Matter Detected

In the summer of 2006, astronomers made an announcement that helped humans understand the cosmos a little better: They had direct evidence confirming the existence of dark matter — even though they still can’t say what exactly the stuff is. The unprecedented evidence came from the careful weighing of gas and stars flung about in the head-on smash-up between two great clusters of galaxies in the Bullet Cluster.

Until then, the existence of dark matter was inferred by the fact that galaxies have only one-fifth of the visible matter needed to create the gravity that keeps them intact. So the rest must be invisible to telescopes: That unseen matter is “dark.”

The observations of the Bullet Cluster, officially known as galaxy cluster 1E0657-56, did not explain what dark matter is. They did, however, give researchers hints that dark matter particles act a certain way, which they can build on.

2. Mars Surface Gives up Signs of Water

Mars Surface Gives up Signs of Water

In 2008, NASA’s Mars Phoenix lander touched down on the Red Planet to confirm the presence of water and seek out signs of organic compounds. Eight years before, the Mars Global Surveyor spotted what appeared to be gullies carved into the landscape by flowing water. More recently, the Mars Expedition Rovers have uncovered minerals that also indicated the presence of ancient water. But proof of modern-day water was illusive.

Then Phoenix, planted on the ground near the North Pole, did some digging for samples to analyze. During one dig, the onboard cameras spotted a white powder in the freshly dug soil. In comparison images taken over the coming days, the powder slowly vanished. After intense analysis, the white powder was confirmed as water ice.

This discovery not only confirmed the presence of water on the Red Planet, it reenergized the hope that some kind of microbial life might be using this water supply to survive.

1. Alien Planets Spotted Directly

Alien Planets Spotted Directly

The first alien planets — called exoplanets — were being detected in the early 1990s, but not directly. In 2000, astronomers detected a handful by looking for a star’s “wobble,” or a star’s slight dimming as the exoplanet passed in front of it. Today we know of 400 exoplanets. In 2008, astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope and the infrared Keck and Gemini observatories in Hawaii announced that they had “seen” exoplanets orbiting distant stars. The two observatories had taken images of these alien worlds.

The Keck observation was the infrared detection of three exoplanets orbiting a star called HR8799, 150 light-years from Earth. Hubble spotted one massive exoplanet orbiting the star Fomalhaut, 25 light-years from Earth. These finds pose a profound question: How long will it be until we spot an Earth-like world with an extraterrestrial civilization looking back at us?
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Science

10 Superhuman Real Life Superpowers

10.Human Magnets

human-magnet

You will find many individuals on the planet that claim to get the amazing property to develop a magnetic field that causes metal to stick for their skin, which will be remarkable if this were truly true. Obviously, their forces aren’t limited to steel, in addition they get plastic to stick too and they don’t trigger any sort of troubles with electronic device.

Turns away they’re maybe not truly magnetic, but rather have amazingly tacky epidermis, which can be just total, however, it will be nice to help you instead of placing it in your pocket to stick your telephone to your own torso, I guess.

9.Super Memory

daniel tammet

Daniel Tammet recalls pi to over twenty  two thousand digits, can talk five languages and continues to be studied extensively by neurobiologists because he is able to clarify precisely how he does it. Do n’t get your hopes up though, he can do all this because he has synaesthesia, where he experiences shapes, textures and colors when he thinks of numbers and phrases.

In a single case he then appeared in a interview talking the terminology and was able to understand audio Icelandic in a week.

8.Mr Eat-all

Michel Lotito

Have you ever ever not been so full that you just wanted to consume a Cessna plane that was whole? How about a coffin? Possibly a computer? You’re a regular person if you answered no to most of these questions, but you’re also not a person using an real super strength. Michel Lotito, also known as Mr Eat-all, had the power to consume and, moreover, shit out anything you can think of without the damage, including poisonous substances.

If the typical person consumed any of those items subsequently they’d be left with serious problems, but maybe not Mr Eat-all, although with that mentioned so his strength wasn’t just best he did also perish at the age of 57.

7.Tame Wild Animals

Kevin Richardson

Richardson gets the ability to tame just about any animal, it seems, as long as they are reared by him from infancy, that might not seem spectacular initially, but a pride of lions tries and join without any taming approaches that are conventional and see how well that goes for you.

Taming big cats isn’t sunshine and all puppy dogs, there’s quite a serious problem with having a pride of lions treat you as one of their very own, for instance they’ll also perform with battle with you, which, as you are able to imagine, is quite painful.

6.Strongest Man in History

Louis Cyr

Louis Cyr proved to be a strong man that is classical, except with one important variation, he was much better than everybody else by a long shot. Doing a back lift he managed to raise just under two tonnes, he also wrestled a guy around 2 feet taller than him and won.

His record breaking efforts have not yet been overtaken by anybody including these who’ve obtained steroids, even today.

5.The Human Computer

Shakuntala Devi

Shakuntala Devi was an Indian social worker with some psychological abilities that are quite amazing, Some may call her a genius in mental calculating; I, however, might call her a machine from the future that was destroyed in the search for Sarah Connor.

Shakuntala had the ability in blistering speed to perform mental calculations, for instance she was able to compute the cube root of sixty one million, six-hundred and twenty-nine-thousand, eight hundred and seventy five before the person checking her answers could write her answer down.

4.Godhand

Mas Oyama

Mas Oyama was an amazing example of what the human body could be capable of, he created his own full contact karate and has a black belt in two different disciplines than just his own. Oyama was of exactly what the body could possibly be competent of an incredible exampl, he produced his own full contact karate and has a blackbelt in two disciplines that were different than just his own.

He showed his strength and endurance by killing fully grown bulls with one blow and participating in three different hundred-man fighting competitions in a row, He showed endurance and his strength by killing fully bulls that were grown with one blow and participating in three distinct hundred-man fighting competitions in a row, In which he fought 100 trained karate experts a day off for three days.

3.Iceman

Ice man WimHof

WimHof does possess a whimsical name, he also has got the ability to withstand insanely low temps that would kill many people were they exposed for how long to them that he sets through himself.

Ice man ran a marathon in –20 °C (-4 °F) weather in only a pair of short pants, he also tried to scale Mount Everest in precisely the same attire, but couldn’t ensure it is all the way up because of a foot injury. He also holds the world record for the greatest quantity of time spent submerged in ice.

2. Ultra Endurance

Dean Karnazes

Humans have the capacity to be the very best marathon runners in nature, however, Dean Karnazes is not worse than the normal person can ever expect to be.
Karnazes has run a 350 mile (or 560 kilometer) marathon in 80 hrs without any sleep, he also ran a marathon a day for 50 consecutive days.
 His ability to to perform arrives to having outstanding muscles that simply don’t exhaust the same manner many people’s muscles do, therefore it’s not merely a matter of easy training.

1. Super Reflexes

Modern day samurai, ISO Mach ii

Modern day samurai, ISO mach ii, contemporary samurai, has an amazingly response that is speedy to the world around him when he holds his sword. ISO has appeared on television to execute his most impressive accomplishment, cutting a BB gun pellet, Which should not be possible if counting on on sight and sound alone.
It seems he has an incredibly complex sense of intuition, Which will be a way of saying ‘we do know how it’s possible for him to do this.’
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Science

10 Islands that may disappear

The rise of the ocean level could function as the biggest menace to the entire world in the days in the future. If global temperatures continue to go unabated sea  levels all over the world could increase by as much as five yards incoming generations, that may seriously impact low lying islands and states. Sea levels have increased 6 to 8 ins in the previous 100 years. Also, it’s been discovered that Antarctic is now shedding around 159 billion tonnes of ice every year for the island countries currently living at sea level, which presents a problem that is new.

Let’s check out 10 such islands which is impacted by climate change crisis.

Solomon Islands

Solomon Islands

Solomon Islands is a sovereign nation composed of a substantial number of islands in Oceania lying to the east of Northwest and Papua New Guinea of Vanuatu.

As a result of debilitating aftereffects of climate change the Low Lying lands of the Solomon Islands are severely affected with decreased property area and crops failing.

Maldives

Maldives

Maldives is just another island that might be shortly lost to rising ocean levels. With the average floor level altitude of 1.5 metres above sea level, Maldives is our planet’s cheapest state.  And because of the geographic location it’s due to inundation from climate change, the most state.

President of the Maldives Mohamed Nasheed stated that “If carbon emissions continue at the speed they’re rising nowadays, my state will likely be submerged in seven years.”

Republic of Cape Verde

Republic of Cabo Verde

Republic of Cabo Verde is an island nation spanning an archipelago of 10 islands in the Atlantic Ocean that is central. Cape Verde is exceptionally exposed to climate change and sea level increase as it detrimentally affects the environment, market and society.

Palau

Palau

Palau, formally the Republic of Palau, is an island region situated in the western  Pacific Sea. The citizenry of around 21,000 is spread across 250 islands developing the developed chain of the Caroline Islands. As global warming causes sea levels to inch up, Palau is facing severe floods which makes inhabitants live under constant fear of their homes being washed away.

Fiji

Fiji

Fiji covers a complete part of some 194,000 square kilometres (75,000 sq mi) that around 10% island. The nation includes much more than 500 islets, amounting to some total property area of circa 18, 300 square kilometers, and an archipelago of more than 332 countries, that 110 are forever inhabited.

Based on 4th examination report of IPCC, Fiji is currently experiencing coastal erosion because of which human arrangement and water resources have reached an increased threat because of sea level rise.

Torres Strait Islands

Torres Strait Islands

Torres Strait Islands are a small grouping of at the least 274 tiny islands which lie in Torres Strait. Climate change triggers some serious issues within this island, like floods damage erosion, coral bleaching etc.

Seychelles

Seychelles

Seychelles includes 115 granite and coral islands in the western Indian Ocean, having a population of 87,122. A rise of just three feet would submerge the Maldives and make them uninhabitable. Also it has witnessed the world`s worst coral die-off.

Tegua

Tegua

The United Nations reported the approximately 100 residents of Tegua, part of the Torres Strait Islands positioned in the Pacific, the primary climate change refugees in 2005.

The sea-level also increased, triggering in regards to a quarter of the flooding, although a lot of the flooding was because the island sunk almost five inches between 1997 and 2009.

Micronesia

MICRONESIA

Micronesia is just a subregion of Oceania and contains thousands of tiny countries while in the western Pacific Ocean. There are four primarily archipelagos along with a number of other outlying destinations.

The sea water is regularly killing off food plants. Scientists warn that a one meter rise that is tiny would produce the area uninhabitable.

Kiribati islands

Kiribati

Kiribati is definitely an island country within the tropical Pacific Sea that is main. The country consists of 32 atolls and one raised coral island, Banaba. It’s a populace 697, of 102.

Due to the increasing sea level, nearly all of it territory disappeared under the ocean which caused most of its population to move to another island, Tarawam.

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