Biomass Accumulation of Cabbage Cultivated Under Plasticulture in High Plant Population.

In Florida, most of the cabbage is cultivated on seepage irrigation resulting from an artificially maintained water table just below the root zone. Seepage has water use efficiency typically lower than 50%. Plasticulture and drip irrigation offers approximately higher water use efficiency and also an opportunity to increased plant population per area. The objective of this study was to evaluate the biomass accumulation and yield of cabbage variety ‘Bravo’ under high plant population on plastic mulch. Cabbage was grown on 1.2 m wide raised beds with black plastic mulch and drip irrigation. A split plot design with randomized complete blocks and four replications was used. Main plots consisted of three or four rows of plants per bed and the subplot factors were in-row plant spacing (15, 20, 25, 30, and 35 cm), the final plant population ranged from 41,519 to 129,167 plants per hectare. The trial was planted on two dates, 25 October and 06 December 2012. Tighter in-row spacings (15 and 20 cm) had more biomass accumulation in both planting dates than wider in-row spacings (20, 25 and 30 cm).The October planting yielded 15% more marketable cabbage than the December planting.  For the earlier planting (October), treatments of 20, 25, and 30 cm averaged similarly biomass accumulation than the December planting date and the tighter in-row spacing were significantly greater in October planting date...Marketable yield for the 4 plant row per bed treatment averaged 36,960 lb/ac for the October planting, while 27,839 lb/ac for the December planting. In general, higher cabbage marketable yields were obtained with a plant population in the range of 16,802 and 39,204 plant/ac for the October planting and 16,802 and 26,136 plants/ac for the December planting.