Using Shade Cloth to Prevent Heat Damage in Summer Broccoli

View the project report

Commodities

• Vegetables: broccoli

Practices

• Crop Production: other, shade cloth

This project seeks to determine if heat damage in summer broccoli production can be significantly reduced by shading the plants with tobacco shade cloth and/or commercial shade cloth. The remedy for heat damage in summer broccoli crops has principally been through planting heat tolerant varieties, but tolerance does not equate to resistance, and during the ever increasing extreme summer heat significant damage still occurs. This project seeks to tackle this situation from the perspective of keeping the environment around the plant cooler, thereby preventing the heat damage from occurring.

If this project is successful it will help farmers to meet the high market demand for summer broccoli in a more sustainable way by reducing damage losses from extreme heat.

The outreach plan is to hold an on-farm field day to share the results of this project. Additionally, articles concerning this project will be published in the UMASS Vegetable Notes Newsletter.

This project seeks to determine whether or not a simulated shade environment will actually yield more uniform summer broccoli production. This study seeks to compare plots of a heat tolerant variety against plots of a heat susceptible variety, further comparing sub plots without cover, with tobacco shade netting, and with commercial horticultural shade netting. If the shading is successful, it would help other farmers to produce summer broccoli in the river valley, thereby improving their farm income. Further if the use of the shade tobacco netting is successful, it could create an adaptive reuse of a waste product that is piled away in many barns in the area. Lastly, this project will answer whether, if successful, the cost of shading the broccoli produces an economically significant boost in production over broccoli grown in the conventional manner.