Florida Farms Weeks 7-8
Weeks 7-8
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This week, our largest obstacle was weed management. Although our cash crops seem to be growing very well, the weeds surrounding them also seem to be thriving. Thankfully, during our class on Monday, all five of our group members were able to successfully remove a lot of the weeds by hand-picking and tilling the area, as seen in the above photo. Specifically, we followed a strategy from Dr. Zhao and other leaders to weed as much as possible near the plants. Although we did not have time to weed the edges or in between the beds as much, we all agreed that it was more important to weed near our cash crops. Our team thought it was a great idea to allot our efforts to the cash crops, and we hope to see the benefits of our actions next week.
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We also had struggles with pest management; however, it does seem that this week the pest management is decreasing and the sunflowers are working as trap crops. During our field day this week, we were able to identify and collect more pests. Specifically, we were able to collect the flea beetle which is pictured above as a blue color., and it seems to be harming most of our leafy greens. Dr. Zhao is sending this to the pest identification to confirm, and we plan to continue to manage the pests as best as possible. We also talked to the teaching farm team to spray neem oil or organic pesticides to minimize this.
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During spring break, there was a dip into freezing temperatures while we were away, and our group was concerned that this would affect our crops, particularly the squash and watermelon. However, we were really excited to arrive back at the farm and learn that the low tunnel was released and did cover them well while the temperatures were low. Our squash are actually really thriving as seen in this image where the squash are flowering and even blooming. We were happy to see that we may still have a yield, even with the cold weather. Additionally, we are happy that we planted before spring break to ensure that we would have yield and be able to harvest.
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Our strawberries are thriving, and this week we even had some blossoms present. We even have a really large berry growing which we attached an image of. We did see that some sunflowers were covering our strawberries, so we were sure to transplant those to other areas where they would be more harmful and not compete or shade our strawberries. We think this may be left from previous growing, so we did note that it would be very important for our group to continue to monitor the sunflower growth to ensure that they do not cause any issues.
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Compared to our other cash crops, our beans seem to be the crop that is struggling the most. It has experienced some damage from pests, and we also assume that the cold weather may have affected the beans significantly. We have attached an image of our current beans here. One way that we plan to combat this issue is to plant more beans through direct seeding. We hope that since beans have close separation and thrive off of each other, this would help us receive more bean yield. Additionally, the direct seeding of beans certainly does not have an 100% growth rate, so we hope that planting more will maximize our growth and lead to more yield.
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We also have an update on our potatoes growth. Last week, we decided to intercrop the potatoes with the marigolds and cabbage. Although our group was a little hesistant about this decision originally as we were concerned that there would be too much competition, we were really happy to see that the crops were thriving and the potatoes have already started coming up as shown here. We are really excited about this bed because it was a very creative approach, yet it seems to be really thriving!
Time Lapse #1:
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Attached is the first time lapse that we recorded. We set up this time lapse to record the progress of our strawberries' growth. The time lapse provided us with a successful viewing of the flowers blooming and turning towards the sun. In addition, the flowers were also pollinated by bees during the video. By the conclusion of the video the bud was not quite a berry yet, but it was a more mature flower. It was very interesting to see a zoomed in view of the strawberry plants, and we believe this is very helpful, especially considering that many of our team members have not planted strawberries before.
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