🌻 Sunflower Seed Per Acre Calculator
Find your exact seeding rate by field size, sunflower type & row spacing
| Sunflower Type | Min Plants/Acre | Typical Plants/Acre | Max Plants/Acre | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oilseed / Commercial | 18,000 | 22,000 | 26,000 | Higher pop for oil yield |
| Confection / Snack | 14,000 | 18,000 | 20,000 | Lower pop for larger seeds |
| Ornamental / Garden | 20,000 | 24,000 | 30,000 | Varies widely by variety |
| Row Spacing | In-row Spacing (in) | Seeds/Acre (90% germ) | Seeds/Acre (85% germ) | Seeds/Acre (80% germ) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 28 in | ~8.5 in | 24,445 | 25,883 | 27,500 |
| 30 in | ~9.5 in | 24,445 | 25,883 | 27,500 |
| 36 in | ~8.0 in | 24,445 | 25,883 | 27,500 |
| 38 in | ~7.5 in | 24,445 | 25,883 | 27,500 |
The sunflower comes from the sunflower plant, whose scientific name is Helianthus annuus. Usually you find three main kinds of oily seeds: linoleic, high oleic and sunflower oil. Each of them offers its own special mix of unsaturated, packed and polyunsaturated fat.
Interesting fact is that those seeds technically are the fruits of the sunflower plant… Simply edible seeds, covered by black bark.
Sunflower Seeds: How to Grow and Use Them
Plant sunflower seeds in the ground and it is one of the simplest garden jobs. Simply take a seed, lay it on your thumb and press it in the soil. After some days, you will see the first green sprout, that pushes from the ground.
They must sit half an inch deep, with six to twelve inches between every pair, and you would want to leave spaces of two to three feet between the rows. When your plants reach around six inches of height, move them outside and thin, so that they stand one to one and half feet from one another. Direct sowing works better than transplanting, those roots do not like to be moved.
Sunflowers are annuals, usually. They grow quickly tall, their stem grows leaves, and those big flower heads follow the sun as it moves through the sky. One finds them in many wild forms, the terrific Jumbo Gria Strip, the little Dwarf Sungold, or exotic choices like Henry Wilde, Crimson Queen, Santa Fe Sunset, Velvet Queen and Moulin Rouge.
There are also compact ones like Sunspot and tender ones like Moonshine. For heritage types, that are open-pollinated and non-GMO, plenty of choices wait to eat, snack or simply decorate your garden nicely.
Those huge flower heads produce barrels of seeds. The wildlife goes crazy for them, birds and squirrels eat constantly, and little yellow finches sometimes remove them even before they ripen. If you grow only four or five Russian Jumbo sunflowers, you will have more seeds than most families can safely consume.
Here something surprising: one can grill immature sunflower heads, and they are surprisingly delicious.
Sunflower seeds serve well as a snack and they fill a nutritious label. You receive iron, potassium, selenium, magnesium, fiber, vitamin E, vitamin B1 and zinc. The zinc strengthens your immune system, while the magnesium helps to calm your nerves, relax your muscles and blood vessels.
About price, they are very cheap, under five dollars for a pound beet the eight dollars for nuts or chia seeds. Buy shelled seeds instead of the rounds to spare time.
Raw sunflower seeds keep all their vitamins and minerals intact, plus they have lots of fiber and amino acids. Even so, they carry lots of omega-6 fatty acids, that can interfere with how your body uses omega-3s. Other spot to note: it is too easy to eat them without thinking and gain hundreds of extra calories without notice.
Moderation is truly the key here. One final tip, those black sunflower oil rounds can be toxic for otherplants, so do not use them as mulch, if you can avoid it.