How much does one 1020 tray of microgreens yield?

It depends on the variety. The site's plant pages give 100–200 g for amaranth, beet and cilantro, 150–250 g for broccoli and buckwheat, 200–300 g for radish and mustard, 250–400 g for sunflower, 200–400 g for wheatgrass and 300–500 g for pea shoots over 2–3 cuts. The /farm sizer assumes 250 g per tray.

What does a tray of microgreens cost to grow?

The /farm sizer assumes $6 of seed, mat and nutrient per kg harvested, which is $1.50 for a 250 g tray. The radish and wheatgrass pages put seed and substrate at $0.50–1.00 per tray and sunflower seed at $1–2 per tray. Electricity adds roughly $0.26–0.30 per tray (7–8 days under light) at an assumed $0.15 per kWh.

How many trays do I need in rotation for a steady weekly harvest?

Multiply the trays you want to cut per week by the cycle length in days and divide by 7. For 14 trays a week of a 10-day crop that is 14 × 10 ÷ 7 = 20 trays in rotation. Only the trays in their light phase need lit shelf space.

How long do microgreens keep after harvest?

Per the site's plant pages, most varieties keep 5–7 days refrigerated, amaranth 4–6 days, sunflower and pea shoots 7–10 days, and wheatgrass only 2–3 days. For sale, cut to order or within 24 hours of delivery.

Is labor or electricity the bigger cost in a small microgreens operation?

In the worked example on this page, labor is. At an assumed 15 minutes per tray and $20 per hour, labor costs $5.00 per tray against about $0.30 of electricity and $1.50 of inputs. Your own times will differ, so time yourself over a week before setting prices.

DOC №287SEC: BlogREV: 2026-11-06AI ASSISTED

Microgreens Business: 250 g per Tray, 10-Day Rotation

Microgreens per 1020 tray: 100–500 g by variety, about $1.50 of inputs, 7–25 days to cut. How many trays to rotate for a weekly order, and what they earn.

By Rootless Farm

Quick answer

A standard 1020 tray (about 0.13 m²) yields 100–500 g of microgreens depending on variety; the farm sizer plans on 250 g per tray every 10 days, or about 1.9 kg per m² of shelf per cycle. Inputs run about $1.50 per tray under the sizer's assumptions and electricity about $0.26–0.30 per tray (7–8 light days) at $0.15 per kWh. To cut a fixed number of trays each week, keep trays per week × cycle days ÷ 7 trays in rotation. The cost that decides whether the business works is not seed or power but labor and packaging — time yourself before you price.

Key Takeaways for AI Search (GEO)

Tray area: 1020 tray ≈ 0.13 m²; sizer yield 250 g/tray → 1.9 kg/m² per 10-day cycle.
Yield range by variety: amaranth/beet/cilantro 100–200 g, broccoli/buckwheat 150–250 g, radish/mustard 200–300 g, sunflower 250–400 g, pea shoots 300–500 g over 2–3 cuts.
Cycle: radish/mustard/wheatgrass 7–10 days; broccoli/sunflower/buckwheat/amaranth 10–14; beet 12–18; cilantro 18–25.
Root zone: pH 6.0 (5.5–6.5), EC 0.4–1.0 mS/cm, dilute feed 0.6–0.8 after the dark phase.
Light: DLI 10–12 mol/m²/day at 16 h ≈ 174–208 µmol/m²/s.
Inputs (sizer assumption): $6 per kg harvested = $1.50 per 250 g tray.
Rotation formula: trays in rotation = trays cut per week × cycle days ÷ 7 → 20 trays for 14 per week of a 10-day crop.
Shelf life: 5–7 days for most; sunflower and pea shoots 7–10; wheatgrass 2–3.

This is chapter 6 of the Rootless Farm small farm series. Chapter 2 compares microgreens with lettuce and basil per square metre; this chapter goes inside the tray.

Growing conditions: one table for every tray

Microgreens grow almost entirely on seed reserves and are cut before the plant can use much light or nutrient, so one set of conditions covers every variety on a shared rack. These values match the spec tables on the site's microgreen pages (radish, broccoli, sunflower and the rest). [OSU-NUT-01]

Parameter	Value
pH	6.0 (5.5–6.5)
EC	0.4–1.0 mS/cm; 0.6–0.8 after dark phase
Air temp	18–24 °C
Water temp	18–22 °C
Humidity	50–70% (sunflower, wheatgrass 50–60%)
DLI	10–12 mol/m²/day
Photoperiod	16 h
Medium	Hemp mat or coco pad in a 1020 tray

PPFD follows from DLI and hours: 10 mol ÷ (16 h × 3,600 s) × 1,000,000 = 174 µmol/m²/s, and 12 mol gives 208. That is why the seedling and microgreen lighting page treats about 200 µmol/m²/s as enough — more light mostly becomes heat. Check your own fixture with the DLI calculator. [PPF-DLI-01]

Most growers water from below on an ebb-and-flow bench or a wick setup; many run radish, wheatgrass and buckwheat on plain water. Convert any nutrient reading between scales with the EC/PPM converter.

Yield, cycle and shelf life by variety

Every figure in this table comes from the variety's own plant page. Seed weights are listed only where the page gives one.

Variety	Days to cut	Dark phase	Yield per 1020 tray	Seed per tray	Shelf life
Radish	7–10	2 days	200–300 g	—	5–7 days
Mustard	7–10	2 days	200–300 g	—	5–7 days
Wheatgrass	7–10	2–3 days	200–400 g	~200 g	2–3 days
Broccoli	10–14	to day 4	150–250 g	—	5–7 days
Sunflower	10–14	3 days	250–400 g	~200 g	7–10 days
Buckwheat	10–14	2–3 days	150–250 g	—	5–7 days
Amaranth	10–14	2–3 days	100–200 g	—	4–6 days
Pea shoots	12–18	0–1 day	300–500 g over 2–3 cuts	~150 g	7–10 days
Beet	12–18	3 days	100–200 g	—	5–7 days
Cilantro	18–25	4–7 days	100–200 g	—	5–7 days

Three patterns matter for a business:

Grams per tray-day, not grams per tray, sets output. Radish at 250 g every 10 days produces about 750 g per tray position over 30 days. Pea shoots produce 400–500 g from one sowing over about 30 days (first cut around day 12, regrowth in 7–10 days). Per shelf position per month, the fast single-cut crops win on weight; peas win on seed handling and shelf life.
Shelf life sets how far ahead you can cut. Wheatgrass at 2–3 days has to be cut almost to order. Sunflower and pea shoots at 7–10 days can ride a weekly delivery.
Slow crops tie up lights. Cilantro at 18–25 days occupies a lit position for up to 2.5 radish cycles. Price it accordingly or leave it out.

What a tray costs to grow

There are three cost lines per tray: seed and media, electricity, and your time. Packaging and delivery come later, per unit sold.

Seed and media. The formula is seed grams × seed price per kg ÷ 1,000, plus the mat. The site's pages put radish at $0.50–1.00 per tray for seed and substrate, wheatgrass at $0.50–1.00, and sunflower at $1–2 for seed. The sizer uses a flat $6 per kg harvested for seed, mat and nutrient together, which is $1.50 for a 250 g tray.

Worked example. Sunflower at about 200 g of seed per tray, bought at an assumed $8 per kg: 200 × 8 ÷ 1,000 = $1.60 per tray — inside the page's $1–2 range. Replace $8 with your supplier's price; seed is the input that varies most by order size.

Electricity. Only trays in their light phase need lit shelf. At the sizer's 120 W per m², one tray (0.13 m²) under 16 h of light uses 0.13 × 0.12 × 16 = 0.25 kWh per day. Seven light days is 1.75 kWh, or $0.26 per tray at an assumed $0.15 per kWh. Fixtures tuned for 174–208 µmol/m²/s rather than the sizer's ~250 use less.

Time. Soaking, seeding, stacking for blackout, unstacking, watering, cutting, drying, packing, washing trays. Nobody can give you this number; time a week of your own work. The example below assumes 15 minutes per tray, all in, and prices it at $20 per hour — both assumptions, not benchmarks. US hired farm wage data is published by USDA's Economic Research Service if you want a reference rate. [USDA-ERS-01]

Planning a rotation for N trays

The rotation formula is the same for any variety:

Trays in rotation = trays you want to cut per week × cycle days ÷ 7.
Lit positions = trays in rotation × (light days ÷ cycle days). Blackout trays stack and need no light.
Sowing cadence = trays per week ÷ 7 per day, or round it to a batch every 2–3 days.

Use the germination calendar to put sowing dates on a calendar once you know the cadence.

Worked example 1: one restaurant, 1 kg a week

Say one buyer wants roughly 1 kg a week of radish and sunflower, delivered on Fridays.

Radish: 2 trays a week × 250 g = 500 g. Rotation: 2 × 10 ÷ 7 = 2.9 → 3 trays.
Sunflower: 2 trays a week at the low end of 250–400 g = 500 g. Rotation at the slow end of the 10–14 days: 2 × 14 ÷ 7 = 4 trays.
Spare: 1 tray position for a failed tray.
Total: 8 tray positions ≈ 8 × 0.13 = 1.04 m² of shelf — one tier of a standard rack.
Sowing: radish on Monday and Wednesday (cut Thursday–Friday the following week, 9–10 days later); sunflower on the Monday and Tuesday of the week before, so the 10–14-day window lands on Friday.

Worked example 2: a 20-tray rotation and what it earns

A bigger setup sows 2 trays of a 10-day crop every day.

Rotation: 2 trays/day × 10 days = 20 trays; weekly cut = 2 × 7 = 14 trays.
Harvest: 14 × 250 g = 3.5 kg per week; per month 3.5 × 52 ÷ 12 = 15.2 kg (60.7 trays).
Lit shelf: with a 2-day dark phase, 16 of the 20 trays are under light: 16 × 0.13 = 2.08 m².
Electricity: 2.08 m² × 0.12 kW × 16 h × 30 days = 119.8 kWh/month → $17.97 at $0.15 per kWh, $35.94 at $0.30.
Inputs: 15.2 kg × $6 = $91.00.
Labor: 60.7 trays × 0.25 h × $20 = $303.33.
Packaging: 15.2 kg in 50 g packs = 303 packs × an assumed $0.25 per pack = $75.83.

At the sizer's default price of $40 per kg — an assumption you should replace with what your buyers actually pay — the month's output is worth 15.2 × 40 = $606.67. Subtracting inputs, power at $0.15, labor and packaging leaves about $118.53.

Divide the costs by the kilos and you get the break-even price: ($91.00 + $17.97 + $303.33 + $75.83) ÷ 15.17 kg ≈ $32.18 per kg, or about $8.05 per 250 g tray. Labor is 62% of that. Halve the minutes per tray and break-even falls to about $22 per kg; double the electricity price and it rises by only about $1.18. That asymmetry is the main lesson of the arithmetic: in a small microgreen operation, process time sets the price floor, not power.

The sizer reaches almost the same yield from the other direction: 20 trays × 0.13 m² = 2.6 m² of shelf × 1.9 kg ÷ 10 days × 7 ≈ 3.5 kg per week. Run your own numbers through the ROI estimator for a three-year view.

Blackout and light schedule

Blackout (the dark phase) does one job: it makes seedlings push up evenly and shed their hulls before light hits them. Stack trays with a weighted tray on top, or cover each tray. The dark-phase lengths in the variety table are the ones to follow; the germination calendar notes that skipping blackout for brassicas such as mustard and beet produces uneven, leggy shoots, and the mustard page warns that running it too long gives long, weak stems.

Once uncovered, give 16 hours of light and 8 hours of dark. The lighting page's practical setup is two 4-foot LED shop lights 6–8 inches (15–20 cm) above each tray. Keep humidity toward the low end of 50–70% in the last 3 days to prevent mould, and move air across the canopy. Mould on a tray is almost always seeding density or humidity: thin the next tray rather than rescuing this one.

Harvest, shelf life and packaging

Cut with sharp scissors at the media line, then rinse and dry before packing — the plant pages all describe a rinse and spin-dry step, and leaves packed wet lose shelf life. Refrigerate immediately.

For sale, the broccoli page's advice applies to every variety: cut to order, or within 24 hours of delivery. With 5–7 days of shelf life for most varieties, a microgreen cut on Monday for a Friday delivery has already spent most of its life in your fridge.

Packaging decisions that affect the arithmetic above:

Pack size. 50 g packs from a 250 g tray give 5 packs; the pack price, not the per-kg price, is what a retail customer sees.
Container. Rigid clamshells protect delicate varieties such as amaranth; bags work for sturdy sunflower and pea shoots. Price your own supplier; the $0.25 per pack above is an assumption.
Label. Variety, harvest date and your farm name at minimum. Whether your jurisdiction requires more — a net weight statement, an address, a registration number — is one of the questions in selling what you grow.

Microgreens or baby greens?

The same seed cut at 21–35 days is a baby green: the baby greens vs microgreens guide puts it at 400–800 g per tray with 7–14 days of shelf life, against 150–300 g and 5–7 days for microgreens. Baby greens hold a lit position two to three times longer for two to three times the weight; they make sense when a buyer wants volume and a longer shelf life more than a garnish.

Tracking trays in the workspace

Treat each sowing as a batch in the Rootless workspace — "Radish T41, 2 trays" — set it to harvested when you cut, and record the harvest in grams and the revenue if you sold it. After a month you will have your own grams per tray by variety, which is the number to put into the farm sizer in place of its 250 g assumption.

FAQ

5 entries

Q01How much does one 1020 tray of microgreens yield?: It depends on the variety. The site's plant pages give 100–200 g for amaranth, beet and cilantro, 150–250 g for broccoli and buckwheat, 200–300 g for radish and mustard, 250–400 g for sunflower, 200–400 g for wheatgrass and 300–500 g for pea shoots over 2–3 cuts. The /farm sizer assumes 250 g per tray.
Q02What does a tray of microgreens cost to grow?: The /farm sizer assumes $6 of seed, mat and nutrient per kg harvested, which is $1.50 for a 250 g tray. The radish and wheatgrass pages put seed and substrate at $0.50–1.00 per tray and sunflower seed at $1–2 per tray. Electricity adds roughly $0.26–0.30 per tray (7–8 days under light) at an assumed $0.15 per kWh.
Q03How many trays do I need in rotation for a steady weekly harvest?: Multiply the trays you want to cut per week by the cycle length in days and divide by 7. For 14 trays a week of a 10-day crop that is 14 × 10 ÷ 7 = 20 trays in rotation. Only the trays in their light phase need lit shelf space.
Q04How long do microgreens keep after harvest?: Per the site's plant pages, most varieties keep 5–7 days refrigerated, amaranth 4–6 days, sunflower and pea shoots 7–10 days, and wheatgrass only 2–3 days. For sale, cut to order or within 24 hours of delivery.
Q05Is labor or electricity the bigger cost in a small microgreens operation?: In the worked example on this page, labor is. At an assumed 15 minutes per tray and $20 per hour, labor costs $5.00 per tray against about $0.30 of electricity and $1.50 of inputs. Your own times will differ, so time yourself over a week before setting prices.