Broccoli and cabbage can survive 26 degrees in the garden, no problem.
Farm fields may have to use plastic like we do with corn planting right after the ground thaws in the Spring.
Soil temperatures should protect the young plants, especially if the irrigation runs overnight.
Back to 70 degrees by 10 am most of the time. :)

I don't think I've seen cabbages, etc under cover in north florida. Did you used to go to the Hastings area when you worked down there? When we drive through there in late March or so we always see maturing cabbages - I don't recall if we've driven through in january. My guess is they direct-seed cabbage in november and the varieties are resistant to vernalizing.

Pn: I don't remember doing research on any veggies that were redirect seeded except sweet corn, everything else was from TPs as almost all of the veggies grown commercially are on plasticulture with raised beds except potatoes and corn.

Don't remember any work in the Hastings area but it is possible. As far as stuff under floating row overs, our work was on vining crops like melons that hug the ground. I do remember some low tunnel work possibly on cole crops at the Live Oak and Alachua research stations but, after appx 20 years, some detail escape me.

I'm pretty sure I've seen the cabbage and collards in the hastings area without plastic, but maybe it was there and I didn't notice driving by.

Could be some dinosaur growers still doing mechanical weed-control and overhead irrigation.

PN: Correct. They used to plant cabbage in the Hastings area from seed about 25 years ago but now it is all t-plants.

I wonder with all those t-plants if cutworms become an issue. Seems to me the are so many cutworm moths that they may inhabit an area and overpopulate rather quickly.

Do we know anything about that?
In my area here in WI, we never see t-plants in fields except Farm Market Fields. I assume they have enough labor to subdue the cutworms but I really don't know.

Maple, i don't know about cutworms, but the one of the lovely things about florida is that it is too subtropical for the hideous imported white cabbage moth which tortures all brassicas grown in the northeast.

A pest that doesn't like Florida...the rarest type of pest.

No problems with cutworms invading en masse that I recall. Up north is obviously shooting for a different market window than FL. Hand picking acres of worms, yeah I'd say that's labor intensive.

Light weight floating row overs would work well keeping the worms out.

NC, maybe not so rare, I believe that CPB also does not exist if FL.

Pn: we did spud research also and I don't remember ever seeing a single CPB.

Yes, that's what I read in the IFAS pages, and I've also never seen one and have grown potatoes multiple years in the same general area. Up here you will surely have CPB by the second year if not the first.

Winter crops in florida have some distinct advantages.

I once picked fres sweetcorn in a commercial corn field in January near the West Palm Beach area, they were also growing squash, peppers and tomatoes, the corn was an excellent treat!

You know, even though I have lived in WPB, lake worth, and pompano, I never got out west to see the muck soil.

Hey Pn : for a real jaw dropper, try out the Belle Glade and Homestead areas.

You know, we plan to drive to key west from central florida next month, and it was on my mind to segue a little westward of the highway in Homestead.

Homestead is on another planet it may seem to you. Last time I was there long ago there were large Mango trees being stood back up and their root systems tucked back into the Ditch Witched trenches they ever pulled out of. Then, the Marl rubble was pushed back over the roots, WHAT!!! That area is underlaid by an ancient sea bed, ( very large flat rock surface) that can be farmed hydroponically if the Marl (rock) is pulverized to rubble and used as the growing medium. They laid out trenches in a grid pattern for trees creating the grid with Ditch Witches and planting at trench intersections. I also saw an example of growing tomatoes where the rubble created somehow was piled up in about 3' wide by 1' high windrows, a drip tape layer down the middle, plastic mulch applied and then rebar driven into the rock to be used in the trellising system for plant support. Then the transplants were planted through the plastic. Bizzare! All I remember about Belle Glade is it's being a very large veggie production area.

Have fun!

Sounds insane. I thought there was some muck soil there but I guess not based on your description.

I remember mucks all around Belle Glade but Homestead only has about an inch of what we would call soil laying on top of the Marl.

This post was edited by michael357 on Wed, Jan 14, 15 at 18:23