Florida Farms Weeks 1-2

a) Name: Florida Farms

b) Group Photo: From left to right, our farm group photo features Alysa, Clayton, Lucy, Beckett, and Santiago.

c) SMART Holistic Management Goals:

    a) Crop yield and quality:

• Specific: We specifically hope to produce a high number of crops that are healthy and organic, so that all of our group can demonstrate the ability to apply our learning outside the classroom and in the field.
• Measurable: We hope to achieve greater than 90% marketable yield across as many crops as possible, and also have enough crops for each of our five group members to take home a reasonable amount at the end of the semester. 
• Achievable: We plan to utilize the proper spacing, organic and integrated pest management practices (such as planting sunflowers and marigolds), and drip irrigation systems to water the crops as efficiently as possible to ensure they are the highest yield and quality possible.
• Relevant: High yield and quality is extremely important to our incubator farm project as it would demonstrate our abilities to perform organic farming and follow measures that lead to success in the fields. Additionally, the high yield and quality is important as it will allow our group members to ensure that we understand how to organically grow and apply our learning outside the classroom, and it will even allow our group members to have organic crops to bring home at the end of the semester.
• Time-bound: Since we only have until the conclusion of the semester (around two and a half months), we need to be as efficient as possible to start practicing techniques (pest management and drip irrigation) to allow the crops to grow organically with a high yield and high quality

    b) Agroecological design and environmental sustainability

• Specific: We plan to minimize the use of external pesticides by utilizing crops like Sunflowers and Marigolds to repel pests and attract pollinators. We also hope to further mitigate our impact on the soil by using beans, a nitrogen-fixing plant, to decrease fertilizer usage.
• Measurable: We can reduce pesticide usage and minimize pest presence by conducting IPM scouting. Monitor plant health by checking for nutrient deficiencies and nutrient-related issues.
• Achievable: We realized that all plants mature within less than a two week frame of each other, and allow adequate time to maturity within the duration of this project’s timeline.
• Relevant: We plan to promote a sustainable approach to agriculture by reducing reliance on external pesticides and fertilizers, while also promoting crop diversity and soil health. 
• Time-bound: We plan to ensure that we are producing the crops as organically as possible throughout the semester, we plan to check on the crops every week to ensure they are following the organic standards. We also will be communicating with each other and our leaders daily to ensure there are no miscommunications between our organic practices.

    c) Marketing and economic viability

• Specific: We plan to maximize profit margins by utilizing an input- reduction strategy. By leveraging nitrogen-fixing beans and "trap crops" (sunflowers and marigolds), we will minimize expenditures on synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, focusing instead on high-revenue, intercropped yields of lettuce and beans.
•  Measurable: We hope to produce around $500 worth of commercial- grade crops through organic and sustainable practices.
• Achievable: Through our integrated pest management, intercropped plants, and composted soil, we significantly lower the variable costs typically associated with conventional farming. By utilizing composted soil and biological synergies, we replace expensive chemical interventions with ecosystem services, making this financial target realistic
• Relevant: This project serves as a proof of concept for small-scale intensive agriculture. Mastering these organic techniques on a 21’ x 40’ scale provides the foundational data and operational skills necessary to scale up to a commercially viable, full-sized farm operation.
• Time-bound: The production cycle will be executed within a 12-week spring window (February–April), where we will need to demonstrate the farm's economic viability before the semester ends

    d) Social and community consideration

• Specific: Since we will be on the teaching farm, our team plans to engage in community engagement by constantly communicating with each other as a team, referring to our teaching assistant, professor, or farm managers with questions, and collaborating with other teams if necessary.
• Measurable: We plan to meet one to two times per week outside of class as a team, so that we can ensure we are constantly communicating. We also would like to attend our teaching assistant’s weekly meetings to ask questions and receive feedback. Finally, we already have a group chat and plan to send updates every other day.
• Achievable: We have already been communicating with each other, and we hope to communicate with our leaders such as the farm managers and teaching assistants as much as possible throughout this process. We all understand that to be successful in this project, we need to communicate and practice teamwork.
• Relevant: Being aware of our surroundings and resources is extremely relevant to our project, because we will only be successful if we work together and respect each other and the land that we are utilizing.
• Time-bound: With our blog and scheduled assignments throughout the semester, we will be able to check in with each and our leaders often. We also have scheduled meetings and class periods to work on this assignment which we believe will be very beneficial to ensuring we stay on schedule.

d) Images with Captions:

• Image 1: This image is a picture of the first bed that we have worked on for our incubator farm project. It includes 12 strawberry transplant plants that we have planted and are closely monitoring. We planted them under the plastic to allow the soil to remain warm and to control weeds. On our second day on the farm, we realized the strawberry plants were a little high, and not fully in the ground, but we did fix that accordingly by digging them deeper.

• Image 2: This is a zoomed in view of the strawberry plants we planted. We planted the S-2 strawberries. One thing that we plan to focus on next time we go out to the farm is eliminating all of the flowers and buds on the strawberry plants so that we can ensure they are not stealing the nutrients from the plant. We hope that this will allow the strawberry to have adequate nutrients and grow better.
  
• Image 3: This is an image of another bed in our incubator farm project. On this bed, we planted kale and broccoli. We planted this in a zipper pattern because we are still planning to plant beans; however, we are planning to wait until later to plant the beans so that they do not have to face the possibly freezing weather. We do believe, and hope, that the broccoli and kale should be able to withstand the upcoming low temperatures.
  
  
  
• Image 4: This is a zoomed-in image of a section of our bed with the broccoli and kale in it. However, as one can see in this image, there seems to be ant beds forming, so our group will be meeting next week to discuss how to combat this issue, as we want to deal with this as soon as possible. 
  
• Image 5: This is a zoomed-in image of one of our kale plants. Next Tuesday, we plan to plant bean plants so that we can intercrop the beans, kale, and broccoli. We believe that this will be very beneficial because it will allow there to be an increase of Nitrogen from the beans, which will be very helpful because the kale and broccoli use a lot of Nitrogen.
  
  
  
• Image 6: This is a zoomed-in image of one of the broccoli plants. We decided to plant the broccoli now because it is a cool-season crop, so we think it will be able to withstand the cooler temperatures that could be approaching, especially towards the end of the month. As a team, we have generally decided to be cautious about the temperatures and wait to plant many crops so that we do not have crops fail and we can achieve as high of a yield as possible.