• Topics: Horticultural Sciences  | Maynard, Donald  |  Cultural Practices for Vegetables 

Scheduling Production of Florida Vegetables¹

Experienced vegetable growers have learned to time the harvest period of the crops that they grow to avoid unfavorable weather and to take advantage of market windows. On the other hand, when alternative or new crops are introduced into a production area, there may be little information or experience on which to base planting schedules and projected harvests.Likewise, new growers or experienced growers of other crops may have difficulty in determining the correct planting date of a new crop for a particular market.

Many commercial seed catalogs provide days to maturity data as part of variety descriptions. These data correct for the area where the evaluation occurred, most commonly California or the northern United States. Unfortunately, days to harvest listed in seed catalogs may be quite misleading for Florida growers.

Pumpkin production for Halloween is an excellent example of this situation. The market is fixed as the last two weeks of October and the product is fairly perishable under unprotected Florida conditions. Therefore, it is important to have the crop in prime condition for harvest on about October 15. Most pumpkins varieties listed in seed catalogs have from 100 to 120 days required for maturity. Using this information, pumpkins should be planted from June 15 to July 5. However, in trails conducted in central Florida, pumpkins required only 82 to 85 days from seeding and 79 days from transplanting to reach maturity. This means that seeding July 20 or transplanting on July 26 would result in an October 15 harvest. Accordingly, there is a two to five week discrepancy between listed times to maturity and actual times to maturity under Florida summer conditions.

Many Florida production areas have distinct fall and spring seasons, and time to maturity is usually less for the fall season than for the spring season. For example, cucumbers, from seeding, at Leesburg required an average of 57 day for the spring crop but only 45 days for the fall crop. At Bradenton, tomatoes required an average of 90 days in the spring and 84 days from transplanting in the fall.

Time of maturity within a production season varies from south to north on the peninsula. For example, peppers in the spring season required 94 days at Boynton Beach, 84 days at Immokalee, 75 days at Bradenton, and 74 days at Quincy from transplanting. Even though all of these plantings were for the spring season harvest, plantings were later in the season from southerly to northerly locations, and growing conditions improved as the season progressed, thereby reducing the number of days from transplanting to first harvest.

In addition to the seasonal and geographic effects on maturity, varieties of nearly all vegetables may be classed as being early, midseason, or late in maturity. In some crops, early varieties may mature as much as a week or two earlier than late varieties.

Because of the discrepancy between published and actual time to maturity and seasonal and site variations in days to maturity, the accompanying data were compiled from the annual Florida Agricultural Experiment Station Circulars on vegetable variety trail results that are listed in the References section. Note that the days to harvest is for the earliest-maturing varieties. When more than one year’s data are available, the days to harvest is an average. The range in days to maturity occurs because of year to year variation in weather and variation of planting time within a production season.

References

Lazin, M.B. 1983.Vegetable Variety Trial Results in Florida for 1981. Fla. Agr. Expt. Sta. Circ. S-304

Maynard, D. N. 1983 Vegetable Variety Trial Results in Florida for 1982. Fla. Agr. Expt. Stat. Circ. S-306

Maynard, D.N. 1984.Vegetable Trial Results in Florida for 1983. Fla. Agr.Expt. Sta.Circ. S-314

Maynard D.N. 1986. Vegetable Variety Trial Results in Florida for 1984. Fla .Agr. Expt. Sta. Circ. S-325

Maynard, D.N. 1987. Vegetable Variety Trial Results in Florida for 1985. Fla. Agr.. Expt. Sta. Circ. S-338

Maynard, D.N. 1987.Vegetable Variety Trial Results in Florida for 1986. Fla. Agr. Expt. Sta. Circ. S-341.

Maynard, D.N. 1988 Vegetable Variety Trial Results in Florida for 1987. Fla. Agr. Expt. Stat. Circ. S-358

Maynard, D.N. 1989. Vegerable Variety Trial Results in Florida for 1988. Fla. Agr. Expt. Sta. Circ. S-363

Tables

The Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (IFAS) is an Equal Opportunity Institution authorized to provide research, educational information and other services only to individuals and institutions that function with non-discrimination with respect to race, creed, color, religion, age, disability, sex, sexual orientation, marital status, national origin, political opinions or affiliations. For more information on obtaining other extension publications, contact your county Cooperative Extension service.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Cooperative Extension Service, University of Florida, IFAS, Florida A. & M. University Cooperative Extension Program, and Boards of County Commissioners Cooperating. Millie Ferrer-Chancy, Interim Dean.

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