http://growingtaste.com/vegetables/okra.shtml

It would be enormously helpful if there was more information in catalogs and elsewhere about this daylight-sensitivity issue. I suspect other vegetables share the trait. Onions are well-known members of the club, as are some beans, but that's about it as far as I remember at the moment....

Cornell has 44 okra varieties listed but no mention of daylight sensitivity at any of them. I guess there are no requirements of seed houses to provide this important information when they list their varieties. And whoever else might be responsible doesn't do it either. Perhaps it is up to folks like us to provide the site with more information (and see if it gets posted). The Cornell site has potential to be a great site. Where else would one find seed sources of 44 okra varieties.

http://vegvariety.cce.cornell.edu/mainSearch/showAll.php?ID=35&sortBy=overallrating&order=DESC&searchIn=1

Well, the long and the short is that I would like to find a few okra varieties to try in my zone 6, Southern NY garden. Taste is important, second is a reasonable crop. I would like to grow at least one branching variety. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated as would more information about which okra varieties are daylight sensitive and which are not.

I'm planning on starting okra indoors to get a head start.
The beds received about 8 inches of half-finished compost topped with dry leaves.

Thanks for your feedback....

I've seen plenty of studies looking at seed vs. transplant and the general gist of most of them seem to be: until there's enough heat/light the plants wont take off, transplanted or seed. Okra doesn't tolerate shade well at all and love the sun.

Around here in middle NC I've transplanted okra in april and it basically sits around barely growing until june+ kicks in.

As far as okra taste...almost all of it tastes the same, though I have only tried a few varieties of the many out there.

Next if you are worried about northern plants then go to the northern seeds sellers. Johnny, Fedco, Pinetree Gardens are all up in Maine for example.

If you want something to grow well in the South look at the recommendations of the Southern seeds sellers.

bye the way. right now Johnnys has some AAS winning Okra on closeout sale.

If Johnny's says a particular onion grows well in Maine then I believe that is a good one for northern growers. And if a Texas Seed company says an onion is great for texas and down south then I believe him. But the texas onion will not grow properly in Maine and the Maine onion will not grow well in texas.

I believe all okra will grow well down south and only a few will do really well up North. The grow season up here is too short for anything that needs more time. But I think everything in okra recommended up in Maine will do fine down south of Maine.

I like Johnny's and Fedco because they test everything out up in Maine. I am 43 North so I tend to use their recommendations.

I've grown Emerald and Stewart's Zeebest in NJ, not all that far from Southern New York. They both did very well. If daylength were an issue for growing it in the North, that would mean that Okra needed short days in order to flower. I really doubt that this is the case with any of the more commonly grown varieties. They all seem to start blooming as soon as they are about 2' tall and bear more heavily as the season progresses (and the plants are larger).

George
Tahlequah, OK

PS. Baker Creek Heirlooms now offeres Stewart's Zeebest.

Moving here from California in the 90's, I had considerable difficulty trying to grow okra. It wasn't that it was daylength sensitive; it was that cool nights in late Summer (when it was just beginning to bear) would weaken the plants, and wilt would then gradually kill them. The leaves would begin to brown around the edges & fall off, until only the stem remained. I tried my favorite "Clemson Spineless", then went through a lot of "short season" varieties - with no luck. I was not recording my varieties back then, the only one I remember was "Emerald".

But then, in the book "Cornucopia II", I read about a variety from Japan called "Pentagreen" that was "...Very productive, even in areas usually too cool for okra." I found seed, and it lived up to its billing - not only producing until frost, but successfully producing dry seed. A few plants still succumbed to the wilt, but most survived.

"Pentagreen" is a stout plant 2-3 feet high, with 3-6 branches. While the early harvest is initially from the central stalk, the branches begin to yield heavily later in the season, culminating in _very_ high yields in late Summer. This past year was my best okra harvest ever, even eclipsing what I had harvested from 'Clemson Spineless" in California! For Northern gardeners, I can't recommend it highly enough.

Sand Hill Preservation carries the seed.

Second, many, many thanks for many generous and useful suggestions.

Beeone,
Starting plants indoors, and transplanting them into warm soil is exactly what I had in mind.  Sorry you ran out of 'customers' for your okra. I wished there would be places in our local communities where regular folks could sell their extra produce and eggs.  Many of us keep to organic methods and grow very fine vegs.  Just a little side note.....

Zeedman, 
I'm going to try the Pentagreen.  Thank you for your helpful reply here and on many other GW threads.   You are very generous with your knowledge in these forums. Ditto Macmex. 

Macmex,
Since they did well for you in NJ, I'll get Emerald and Stewart's Zeebest in addition to Pentagreen.  The aim is to find one variety that's excellent in taste and yield, and come 2009, grow just that one, making seed-saving less complicated.  Thank you for your suggestions and thoughts on daylength sensitivity.

Dangould,
you said, *First you should explain what you mean by daylight sensitive*  Well, I must have been real sleepy and dozing off when I wrote my post, 'cause, of course, I meant to say daylength (not daylight) sensitive. 

Nc-crn,
Thanks for your comments.  As suggested by Beeone, the key is transplanting into warm soil, which in my area would be around Memorial Day, or at the most, two weeks prior.