NON-HARDY BULB AND PERENNIAL PRODUCTION IN NORTHERN CLIMATES

Southeast Idaho’s short growing season limits the viability of cutflower farming due to the small number of hardy crops available to growers. However, using low input hoophouses for winter protection, non-hardy bulbs, annuals and perennials can be grown, alleviating this problem. This project proposes the planting of a number of species hardy only to zone 6 at best in a cutflower grower’s already existent hoophouses, in order to test the profitability of nonhardy cutflower crops.

The grower, who has ten years of cutflower experience and whose income is solely derived from cutflower farming, has already done the project’s initial groundwork, having monitored soil temperatures inside unheated hoophouses through two winters in Blackfoot, Idaho. Never dropping below 35 degrees despite outside temps of –15 degrees, the protected soil is warm enough to overwinter most, if not all, non hardy and even tropical bulbs, as well as tender perennials whose roots will not survive extreme frost. Additionally, the grower has already tested a small amount of tender bulbs through the winter in the monitored houses and found that the bulbs do remain viable, blooming two months earlier than if spring-planted. The project will build on that primary information by using a number of new crops.

Given the demise of the Southeastern Idaho potato industry in particular and traditional agriculture in general, this project is important to illustrate the viability of alternative crops. While the Idaho cutflower industry is as yet very small, primarily because of the harsh climate, this project will not only show its viability as an alternative, but will also show indirectly how hoophouses can be used to expand crop possibilities by artificially extending local hardiness zones. Four months can be added to the normal season with little added energy costs, expanding the sales and growing season of Idaho cut flower growing.

By doubling the sales period, it is assumed that with proper management, sales can double as well, particularly since March, April and May are high flower-consumption months (summer months are the slackest marketing period). The non-hardy varieties will expand the grower’s offerings, increasing his market share against foreign interests in South America.

Cutflower varieties (bulbs, annuals, biennials and perennials) will be planted in three hoophouses, two of them heated. Cool season crops, which normally cannot be grown in Southeast Idaho because of the quick transition between low winter temps and high summer temps, will fill one of the hoophouses; warm season crops, which require a longer season of warmth than that provided by the local climate will fill a second; and the third, unheated hoophouse, will be planted with proven biennials and perennials that can withstand night frost but which will gain six weeks on normal bloom time by being under plastic in the daytime of a late Idaho winter.

The crops will be planted as required, with many of the bulbs planted in very late fall, perennials and biennials in early autumn, and warm season bulbs in mid-spring (see plant list attached to budget for planting times). Heat will be applied as required to prevent frost damage upon plant emergence. Stems will be harvested at the proper times, stored in grower’s existent coolers, and sold on grower’s existent routes to Idaho, Montana and Wyoming customers. Cool weather plants will be harvested from early April thru May; unheated hoophouse plants will be harvested in May; warm weather crops will be harvested in August and September.

The grower will educate local laborers in the marketing, growing, and harvesting of cutflowers, giving them additional workplace skills. Plant materials, when possible, will be bought locally, through arrangements with nurseries in Jerome, Malad, Downey and Blackfoot, keeping dollars local, while harvested material will be sold throughout southeast Idaho and Western Wyoming, keeping monies otherwise distributed to out-of-state interests in local hands. The grower and his family, along with hired labor, will participate in the project, though the Bingham County Weed Supervisor, local extension personnel, and a researcher at Shelley high school will assist in oversight. The Association of Specialty Cut Flower Growers will be kept abreast of all information, and will also serve as a resource.

Bloom time, stem numbers, and sales figures will all be monitored closely in order to give future growers the needed information to duplicate or improve upon the project’s success. Sales figures will be compared to costs in order to establish profitability of any particular species.

Those sales figures will determine the project’s success, though failures of any particular species will also be considered a partial success in that the information gained can be used to eliminate that species or to change the growing techniques used. If the project is successful, other Idaho growers may find themselves able to enter the cutflower marketplace. Large scale growing could conceivably take place via shipments out of state, as well as for sources of the cutflower material itself (bulb stock, etc.)

It is assumed the project has a high potential for success, due to the grower’s ten years of hard fought expertise in the cutflower industry and his positions as Northwest Regional Director and Research Committee Chair of the Association of Specialty Cutflower Growers, a group of 700+ nationwide growers. He has grown and tested over a hundred and fifty varieties of cuts (and eliminated a goodly portion of them from his sales list) and is the only grower in the eastern half of Idaho who makes his living solely from unimported cutflower sales. The harsh local climate has in the past precluded him from growing a number of profitable, highly marketable crops, but the proposed project will eliminate that impediment.