Planning a season's planting is a complex problem facing Florida's chrysanthemum producers. Planting must be carefully timed to assure adequate supplies of flowers during peak marketing periods. Also, widely varying labor requirements of the crop should be considered. Finally, even the best-laid plans may be ruined by crops coming in too soon or too late due to unexpected weather variations. In this paper, a dynamic linear program is developed as a planning aid for chrysantheum production. The model parameters are then estimated with sufficient accuracy to demonstrate the model's workability, and an application of the model is suggested.

Chrysanthemums (pompons) may be grown as either a single-stem or pinched crop. In single-stem production, a cutting is planted and harvested as a single stem of flowers that is sold in a bunch of six or seven stems.