Nov 18, 2011

Broccoli has a chance on the East Coast

Despite increased consumption of broccoli in the eastern United States, very little is grown in that region. Growing broccoli in the eastern part of the country has been a challenge due to climatic stresses. As a result, 90 percent of the broccoli sold in the region comes from California and Mexico, said Thomas Bjorkman, an associate professor of horticulture at Cornell University.

Starting this past growing season, Bjorkman lead a team of researchers in developing what they hope will be a $100 million broccoli industry on the East Coast. The trials are taking place at various farms in Maine, New York, Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina, Bjorkman said. The northern end of Florida will be added later.

The plan is for this industry to develop over the next 10 years with grant money from USDA, Bjorkman said. The project is developing broccoli varieties suited to eastern conditions. Recent breeding developments in broccoli have made plants more tolerant to eastern heat and humidity, a major obstacle to growing broccoli in the region.

“This season, we did highly replicated trials of the best current material at five locations in target production environments, evaluating for traits that can be selected for in the breeding program,” he said. “We want to be really specific about what genetically determined attributes need to be improved.”

Bjorkman is excited about the progress made so far.

“We’ve got good results from all the locations, though some late varieties are still being harvested,” he said. “For 2012, we will have a lot of new crosses to test that were made during the past year. These will also be tested with identical protocols in all five states.”

They also are working to recruit farmers and organize grower/distributor networks. Cabbage growers have the knowledge and equipment to raise broccoli, Bjorkman said. They may benefit from the substantially larger market that broccoli offers.

The rotation limits, post‐harvest handling, shipping and marketing associated with broccoli may be a better fit for growers of other fresh-market crops than cabbage. Bjorkman plans to survey a large number of growers to see which groups are best suited for the crop.

Bjorkman said they are getting a good idea about the other aspects of growing broccoli in the east.

“We are getting a good idea of the variation production costs,” he said. “Efficiencies on the farm and matching the scale of production to post-harvest handling and distribution are important.”

By Derrek Sigler, Associate Editor