Which Crops to Sell: The Three Most Grown Include the Two Worst in the Only Budget

Two independent sources exist on this question and neither mentions the other. Put them side by side and they disagree with what the field actually does.

What growers grow, against what the budget says they earn

A national survey of 176 US growers reports the most commonly produced varieties: radish at 29 percent, sunflower at 28, pea at 27.

Missouri Extension's budget models income over total cost for five crops. Set the two together:

The most commonly produced crop is last of five. The third most commonly produced is fourth of five. The crop the budget ranks first does not appear in the popular three at all, and sunflower, the second most produced, is not in the budget.

Do not read that as "everyone is growing the wrong thing." It is a survey of what is PRODUCED laid against a budget of what is MODELLED, and neither measures what is sold or at what price. Popularity may reflect reliability, customer familiarity, or that radish and sunflower are the two crops a beginner succeeds with.

But it is a real tension and nobody in this category has put the two documents together. If your crop plan came from what other growers grow, it came from the survey side of that table and not the budget side.

This site's own seed costs deepen it rather than resolving it. Across the 50 costed crops here, radish is $2.01 a tray and pea shoots $2.39, both well above the $1.09 median, while broccoli is $0.79. The two most-produced crops in the budget are also among its dearer seeds, which is the opposite of the story cheap-seed reasoning would tell.

The premium is real and its cause is not established

One seller publishes an explicit tier structure: a base at $3.75 an ounce, and $6.25 for basil, shiso, amaranth, beet and chard.

That is a price difference, not a demonstrated cause. The tier groups distinctive flavor and strong color together, which is consistent with either driving the premium, or with neither, and the catalogue measures nothing about fragility, shelf life or scarcity.

A tier list tells you what one farm asks. It does not tell you a buyer paid more because the crop was purple.

The revenue example worth having

One vendor publishes a transparent per-tray figure. A 10x20 arugula tray with a target yield of 320 grams, divided into three 105-gram clamshells at $12, gives $36 a tray.

Two cautions on it. It is vendor crop data supplied courtesy of a named farm rather than independent evidence, and its commercial unit is the 105-gram clamshell, so $36 a tray is the figure to use and per-ounce conversions are this page's arithmetic rather than theirs.

And it is revenue. As the profit guide sets out, the calculators in this category publish revenue per tray and the one real budget publishes income over total cost, and the two differ by up to nine times.

Mixes, and what nobody knows about them

No survey reports what share of a grower's sales comes from mixes against single crops. One Pennsylvania operator says a $7 two-ounce salad mix outsells $5 individual packs and publishes neither units nor share.

Note what Missouri's budget does with mix: at $14.20 it ranks third of five, above pea and radish and below cabbage and broccoli. So the one modelled figure puts a mix in the middle, which is neither the premium product nor the loss leader that operator accounts variously describe.

Twenty-one percent of surveyed growers sell live trays, which is a format decision rather than a crop one and carries a price that does not convert to a weight.

What to actually do

• Do not choose crops from what other growers grow. The three most produced include the two the only budget ranks worst.
• Do not choose them from seed price either. Radish and pea are dearer than the median here and are also the two lowest-ranked in the budget, so the cheap-seed heuristic points the wrong way twice.
• Run Missouri's budget with your own numbers before committing a crop plan. It is the only document that costs a tray all the way through, and its ranking is the closest thing to an answer that exists.
• Grow the reliable crops to learn on and reprice them later. Radish and sunflower's popularity is plausibly about success rate rather than margin, and a crop you can actually finish is worth more than a modelled one you cannot.
• Treat the specialty premium as an asking price, not a demonstrated cause. If you test it, hold channel, pack size and date constant or you have measured nothing.
• Keep the mix in the middle of your expectations. One modelled figure puts it third of five.
• Check any per-tray revenue figure for what it includes before comparing it to a profit figure.

What nobody has measured

• What share of sales comes from any crop. The survey counts what is produced, not what is sold.
• Whether the specialty premium is caused by flavor, color, scarcity or fragility.
• Mixes against single crops, as a share of either units or dollars, from any source.
• Whether crop popularity reflects margin or success rate. Both are plausible and neither is measured.
• A second enterprise budget to check Missouri's crop ranking against.
• Business survival by crop choice, which the survey cannot address because it is a cross-section of active growers with no denominator of those who closed.

Sources

Opened 2026-08-12. The ranking table joins two independent sources neither of which cites the other, and the seed cost comparison is this site's own, recomputed across the 50 crop entries that carry a costed tray.

• University of Missouri Extension, Microgreens Planning Budget G693 (PDF) - income over total cost per harvested 1020 tray of $19.45 cabbage, $14.36 broccoli, $14.20 mix, $6.58 pea and $5.84 radish, modelling five crops in a greenhouse under artificial lights.
• Misra and Gibson, characterization of microgreen growing operations, Food Protection Trends, January 2021 - the national survey of 176 US-serving growers reporting sunflower at 28 percent, pea at 27 and radish at 29 as the most commonly produced varieties, 21 percent selling live trays, and 62 percent under $10,000 in annual revenue. Self-selected respondents, and a cross-section rather than a survival study.
• Alberta Agriculture, commercial microgreens enterprise budget (PDF) - notable for labeling its own "theoretical market sales price", fixing overhead at $6,000 a month divided by 960 trays and stating its productivity factors. Under its stated assumptions, retail clamshell profit is the case that shows why a price premium alone can fail to cover labor. Cited as an example of a budget that exposes its assumptions rather than as a source of current local profit.
• Seller and vendor pages, used as practice only: MicroFreshly wholesale pricing, the source of the $3.75 base and $6.25 tier for basil, shiso, amaranth, beet and chard; Paperpot Co, arugula microgreens grower notes, 2022 (PDF), the source of the 320 gram arugula target yield sold as three 105 gram clamshells at $12 for $36 a tray, supplied courtesy of Scintilla Farms; and Grown Like A Pro, the operator account that a $7 two-ounce salad mix outsells $5 individual packs, published without units or share.