A Cut Above: Integrating Cut Flower Production into Mixed Vegetable Farms in the Southeastern United States

Commodities

Practices

Cut flowers have the potential to improve both the financial and ecological health of small and mid-sized farms. Cut flowers, worth $1 to $5 per stem and spaced at 50 to 80 stems per square yard, fit naturally into existing vegetable rotations, require no specialized infrastructure, and can be grown year-round in the South. Flowers also can provide nectar and pollen resources to predators and pollinators, building populations of beneficial insects and spiders. Unfortunately, growers in the South lack region-specific, research-based information on the financial and ecological benefits of cut flowers. Key knowledge gaps include guidance on production practices, disease and pest management, reliable market information, and the ecosystem service benefits of integrating cut flowers into vegetable systems. This limits growers' ability to make informed, profitable, and sustainable operational decisions. Therefore, we propose a three-year systems approach to conduct on-farm and experimental field trials addressing grower needs for integrating cut flowers within mixed vegetable production.

This three-year project will address knowledge gaps through a coordinated systems approach linking production research, disease and pest ecology, ecosystem services, consumer markets, and Extension outreach. Through this work, we will survey a total of 50 Georgia and Tennessee farmers to gather regional perspectives on grower practices, disease, pest, beneficial insect management, and markets. We will conduct on-farm field trials with our four farmer-collaborators to determine cut flower crop rotations, flower selection, disease prevalence, and insect ecology. With technical assistance from our collaborators (University of Tennessee, Georgia Organics, Extension, and the industry) and cooperating farmers, we will use experimental field trials at the University of Georgia and Tennessee to determine which cut flower production practices (organic nitrogen fertility, plant date, and high tunnels v. fields) best integrate with vegetable production, over two seasons and two years with a total of six cut flower species integrated with vegetables. This experimental trial will also allow for a better understanding of the interactions between flower and vegetable production systems and allow us to examine insect and disease ecology of this unique system in detail. Through a consumer survey, we will identify consumers and the attributes that shape their purchasing decisions. This work will lead to a better understanding of marketing cut flowers and identify consumer knowledge gaps of the benefits of purchasing local flowers. We will conduct farmer, Extension, agriculture professional, and scientific outreach throughout the timeline of this grant. Outreach will be achieved through on-farm field days with our collaborators, videos about flower production, webinars, and continuation and expansion of our annual Cut Flower Symposium. Work collected from this project will be incorporated into University of Georgia and University of Tennessee Extension resources including fact sheets, online courses, short bulletins, and a comprehensive production guide for growing cut flowers on mixed vegetable farms in the Southeast. This project will address grower needs and profitably while determining previously unresearched cut flower and farm systems to help grow the region's cut flower industry and overall farm markets.

The overarching goal of this project is to determine the production practices, disease dynamics, ecosystem service benefits, and consumer market landscape associated with integrating cut flowers into small and mid-sized mixed vegetable farms in Georgia and Tennessee. The following five objectives provide the coordinated research and outreach framework through which that goal will be achieved.

Objective 1. Survey 50 Georgia and Tennessee Growers to characterize cut flower production practices on small to mid-sized farms with help from UT, UGA Extension, and Georgia Organics collaborators.

Objective 2. Conduct on-farm studies with four collaborating farms to understand detailed production practices, current markets, cultivar selection, plant diseases, and harmful and beneficial insect populations over two years.

Objective 3. Conduct replicated experimental field trials at the University of Georgia Organic Farm and University of Tennessee in both high tunnel and field trials to test fertility, plant dates, disease progression, and insect ecology for three common warm season species and for three common cool season cut flowers grown with mixed vegetables over two seasons and two years.

Objective 4. Survey consumers to assess awareness, purchasing behaviors, and perceptions of locally grown cut flowers.

Objective 5. Develop and deliver research-based educational materials for growers, Extension, and the scientific community to optimize cut flower production and markets in Georgia, Tennessee, and the Southeast.