Blog #5: Determine Isolation Requirements
Daucus Carota Yellowstone
Carrots require an isolation distance of 0.5-2 miles.
Spinacia Oleracea Bloomsdale
Spinach requires an isolation distance of 0.5-3 miles.
Beta Vulgaris Golden
Beets require an isolation distance of 0.5-10 miles.
Carrots, Spinach, and Beets generally have the same minimum isolation distance of 0.5 miles. Beets and spinach are wind pollinated and are both very light seeds to the isolation distance becomes larger if there aren’t any barriers in between us and the neighbors or neighboring crops of the same species. Beets are susceptible to crossing with genetically modified sugar beets therefore, there is a minimum distance of 10 miles where GMO sugar beets are involved. All three of these species cross-pollinate very easily by insects or wind.
We are situated in a very isolated area. To the West of us is a half a mile of thick forest, followed by pasture and grazing lease. I am still working on finding out If I have to worry about Queen Anne’s Lace or wild carrots in the natural boreal forest we have. If so, I will have to create an isolation chamber.
To the South of us is again just pasture. To the South East, East and of us are our nearest neighbors who are a little over a mile away in each direction. They all grow small gardens for themselves. There are trees separating us from them ranging from 10 feet to 1/5 a mile wide. Since they are over a mile away and we have a bit of a barrier I’m not worried about insects cross-pollinating. They also only grow very small personal gardens. I would only be worried about spinach crossing because spinach is an annual and if they aren’t harvesting their spinach in time it could go to seed. Carrots and beets are biennials and none of the neighbors grow these biennials out for seed, so I don’t have to worry about cross-pollinations for these species.
I plan on only growing 1 variety of spinach, beets, and carrots so I don’t have to worry about any cross-pollination within my own garden. Since each of these species require half a mile isolation distance it will be hard to grow multiple varieties. I have considered having multiple gardens in the future. My father in-law has a farm 3 miles away which we could have another seed garden on and grow another variety within the same species. I’ll have to consider growing out varieties every three years, and alternate varieties between species. For carrots, I may just have to build more isolation chambers.
Hi Lisa; Good plans so far! Your isolation from other farms or gardens with vegetables is very helpful. One comment I can make when planning your wind-pollnated crops like spinach, or the second-year beets is to plant them in blocks, rather than long rows. This helps to ensure that the polle that is released by the plants and moves with the wind has the best chance of landing on the flowers of the other spinach or beets. It means you'll get better seed set and yield, and also in case there is any chance of spinach pollen from a far away neighbour, the block planting helps to improve the chances that your own crops do the pollinating for you, not theirs.
ReplyDeleteI also think you have identified a good strategy when it comes to wanting to grow multiple varieites of some of these crops. Do it on different years! You can certainly do that, and only need to grow out each varietal once every 3 or 4 years. This is a strategy used by many seed growers who want to explore growing a diversity of crops and are limited by space.
Hi Lisa - I like your plan! You are in a very enviable position being so isolated. This sounds ideal for the difficult wind-pollinated crops. Queen Anne's Lace is aka wild carrot and appears to be the only issue you'll have to do some further homework on to ensure no crossing of your carrot crop. How do you plan to mitigate the risk of some of your neighbours letting their spinach crop go to seed?
ReplyDeleteI also like your multi-farm, multi-year plan to enable you to grow more than one variety each year. Well thought-out!