Trasplants

Update on our transplants and green beans

This is what our transplants looked like today:

The pac choi and the cabbage have been growing very well. Most of the basil plants look healthy but some are of a very light green color and we observed similar differences in color among the kale plants. We decided to apply organic fertilizer and watered the plants in an effort to facilitate good growth. 

And here you can see what the green beans in the field looked like:

Since there was a little area in which the green beans did not grow well we decided to put new seeds in that area. We then watered the beans. We also made plans to get rid of the weeds throughout the next week. 

Fertilizer Requirements

To ensure that our newly germinated beans and our soon to be planted transplants stay healthy for the whole growing season, we are going to put down some organic fertilizer. This will supply all the necessary Nitrogen, Potassium, Phosphorus and other nutrients our plants need.

Our field’s soil test showed that it was low in N, and K but fairly high in P.

Per the IFAS growing recommendations at these soil conditions, our beans need about 120 lb N/acre/per growing season. Similarly they need between 80 and 100 lbs K and little to no P.  Basil plants also need 120 lb N. The Kale, Chinese Cabbage and Pac Choi have similar nutritional needs and require 175 lbs N, 150 lbs K and little to no P, per acre, per growing season.  

We decided to use the 10-2-8 Nature Safe Fertilizer provided by our professor because it was readily available and a good balance of N-P-K. Because the fertilizer has many organic components that will break down slowly, we will incorporate the full amount into our beds now making some nutrients immediately accessible to our transplants and others slowly released throughout the growing season. Because our beans have already been planted, we will side dress that bed. None of us are very familiar with this fertilizer, however, so we will also look for early symptoms of nutritional deficiencies and act quickly to remedy them.

Below are our calculations for our field requirement.

Our Plot is 20x24 or 480 ft2, or 1/90^th of an acre

175 lb N    X        1     = 1.9 or about 2lb N needed for our plot

Acre                     90

                       

10% of each LB of Nature Safe is N or 1 LB NS=0.1 lb N

0.1 lb N   =  2 lb N  so our field requires 20 lbs Nature Safe to meet it’s N requirement for Cole Crops

1 lb NS         X lb NS

20lb NS X 0.08 K = 1.6 Lb K  (This meets/exceeds requirement)

There are 5 rows in our field, so we need 4lb per row of Cole crops

120 lb N    X        1     = 1.3 lb N needed for our plot

Acre                     90

                       

10% of each LB of Nature Safe is N or 1 LB NS=0.1 lb N

0.1 lb N   =     1.3 lb N  so our field requires 13 lbs Nature Safe to meet it’s N requirement for Beans

1 lb NS         X lb NS

13 lb NS X 0.08 K = 1.04 Lb K  (This meets/exceeds requirement)

There are 5 rows in our field, so we need 2.6 lb per row of Green Beans or Basil

Haricots verts

Bush beans are short plants, growing to approximately two feet in height. They generally reach maturity and produce all of their fruit in a relatively short period of time, then cease to produce.