Today was the last day of our season extension experiment at the UBC farm. We walked over to the farm to collect our crops, and all of the equipment we had used to complete the experiment.

Our baby brassica greens! Photo credit: Jenny

We are really pleased with the crop we managed to get for under a month of growing time. The crops outside the greenhouse did not fare so well.

The outside plants. Photo credit: Jenny

We were not aware that another hoop house was being built, or we would definitely have stuck our control plants in a less high-traffic area. However, a new hoop house will be an asset when the UBC farm goes into early baby arugula production!

Next, we got down to business. In this case, it was harvesting and weighing all of the arugula plants, in order to determine which cultivars would make good early season crop choices.

Harvesting and weighing the brassica cultivars. Photo credit: Jenny

The plants that lived outside the hoop house were significantly smaller than the plants grown into the hoop house. This may be due in part to a miscommunication that led to the outdoor plants not getting watered as much as they should have, which, due to the warm dry weather over the past week and a half, may have put some undue stress on these little guys.

The outside plants. Photo: Jenny

However, the indoor plants exceeded expectations!

Hoop house grown cultivars. Clockwise from top left: Mizuna, Sueh Li Hung #2, Ruby Streaks, Astro arugula and Surrey arugula. Photo: Jenny

The whole team is continuing to analyze data and write up reports tonight, but we will be finishing the blog up in the next 16 or so hours. Tomorrow we present our research to the Agroecology 260 class!

Working in the soils lab. Photo: Jenny

On March 14th, we went back to the farm to see how our plants were doing, only to find…..

The brassica greens have sprouted! These plants are the ones inside the hoop house. Photo: Jenny

We are very excited. The brassica greens are up! Almost all of the seeds in the green house have sprouted, and are doing well. However, the Astro Arugula seems to have a head start. It has the largest plants so far.

The tray of plants out side the hoop house. Not many seeds germinated. Photo: Jenny

We checked the out side tray of plants as well, and discovered a few seeds had germinated there, too. Interestingly enough, the outdoor seeds that managed to germinate were mostly in the Astro Arugula cultivar row.

Indoor tray: Astro Arugula pulling ahead of the other little guys. Photo: Jenny

It will be really interesting to see if the Astro Arugula cultivar continues to develop faster than the others. If so, it could be that we have narrowed in on a type of brassica green that does particularly well in early season conditions. We will continue to monitor the growth of our plants over the next couple weeks. Only time will tell!

On March 7th we went out to the farm to install our data loggers. We are using two HOBO loggers that will be measuring the temperature of the air and the soil ever 5 minutes throughout our experiment. The one pictured below is measuring the air and soil temperatures inside the hoop house.

The HOBO data logger, inside the hoop house. Photo credit: Jenny

The temperature data collected by these loggers will tell us what the temperature difference is between the hoop house and the outdoors. Assuming that temperature is an important factor in plant growth, we expect the brassica green cultivars inside the hoop house will germinate and develop more rapidly than the ones out side the hoop house.

The HOBO data loggers, all hooked up and ready to go. Photo credit: Liheng

The data loggers were quite easy to set up. We hammered in a metal pole, attached the data logger to it, and zip tied everything up nicely to make sure it all stayed put. These loggers have two senors, one for soil temperature and one for the air. The air temperature is measured inside the white circular housing seen in the upper left of the above photo. The soil sensor was placed inside one of the cells in the tray of plants, just below seed depth.

A data logger in action. Photo credit: Jenny

Our experiment has started! Today, we went over to UBC farm to plant our experiment crops. We planted 40 seeds of each of the following greens: Astro arugula, Surrey arugula, Mizuna, Sueh Li Hung, and Ruby Streaks, which is a baby leaf mustard.

Jenny, planting seeds at UBC farm. Photo credit: Luna

Luna, also planting seeds. Photo credit: Jenny

Half of the seeds planted have been placed inside a hoop house, and the other half were placed outside the hoop house. We will be returning to the farm several times a week to check on our seeds, but for now all we can do is cross our fingers and hope they germinate! If the greens do grow, we may be able to extend the season for growing these delightful greens at the UBC farm.

These seeds will be living inside the hoop house throughout the course of the experiment. Photo credit: Jenny

These seeds will be living outside the hoop house, to ensure there is actually a difference in plant growth from the hoop house to the outdoors. Photo credit: Luna

It was a beautiful spring day for planting today. Lots of sun, and wonderfully warm out! The farm is getting busy in preparation for the spring planting season, so we are extra grateful that UBC Farm Research Coordinator Jacob Slosberg took some time out of his busy day to help us. We owe him a huge thank you.

• Introduction

The UBC Farm has expressed an interest in extending the season of marketable vegetable crops through the use of hoop houses. For our research project we will be determining whether it is possible to extend the growing season for arugula at the UBC Farm by starting seeds in early March in one of the hoop houses. If season extension proves to be effective for arugula, we will be able establish which of the 4 cultivars currently grown at the farm is best suited to seeding in early March. Early production of arugula at the UBC Farm will result in greater profits and therefore increase the economic sustainability of the farm.

• Methodology

We will be growing four different cultivars of arugula: Astro, Surrey, Ruby Streaks, and Sue Li Hueng #2. Each cultivar will be planted in trays both inside and outside of a hoop house. The plants will be grown from seed, and the growth of the plants will be measured at the end of the experiment. This measurement will be done by comparing the average above ground biomass of each arugula cultivar grown inside and outside of the hoop house. The cultivars will be compared to determine which is best suited for early season production. In addition to arugula plant growth, we will be analysing weather data from March of previous years and comparing it to this March, in order to ensure that potential growth or lack of growth in the early season plants is not an anomaly due to unusual weather.

• Materials and Resources

Use of one hoop house at UBC Farm                                                                                    Climate data from Totem Field Climatology Station for March of this year and March over the past 5 years                                                                                                              Arugula seeds of the following 4 cultivars: Astro, Surrey, Ruby Streaks, and Sue Li Hueng #2                                                                                                                                         Plant starting trays                                                                                                            Potting mix                                                                                                                         Scissors                                                                                                                            Scale

• Expected Research Outcome

We expect to conclude the success or failure of extending the growing season for arugula at the UBC Farm. Of the four different arugula cultivars grown at the UBC Farm, we expect to observe different growth patterns when started as an early season crop. By growing an equal number of plants in trays with the same potting mix outside of the hoop house, we will be able to compare the growth of arugula inside and outside of the hoop house. Analysis of weather data from previous years will allow us to state whether the climatic conditions for March 2013 are considered representative of an average year and result in the expected plant growth that would be seen in March of years to come.

• Timeline

Welcome!

This blog with follow a group of Applied Biology students from the University of British Columbia as we complete a research project involving the hoop houses at the UBC farm.