Winter Jewel F1 cabbage trial
August 2020 - Ongoing
The trial
We are just starting some autumn/winter trials of cabbage and early carrots with other, enthusiastic and experienced gardeners. We planted the first two of those trials in early October. They were both in raised beds with added mesh protection from predation by birds.
We are growing Winter Jewel FI a hardy overwintering variety that produces a small cabbage. We have grown the plants from seed and brought them on in small, 7cm pots in three varieties of biochar-compost mixtures as well as controls grown in the same compost. For each plant we have measured the plant height and maximum leaf width. The controls on average are slightly smaller and the trial plants but the differences are not statistically significant.
The preparation and seedling stage
We used three biochars. We made one from wood fragments sieved out of garden compost. The second, we made from the compost itself and the third was a commercial biochar. We mixed each separately, 1:10 by weight, with sieved (6.5mm) garden compost.
Once these plants reached about 18cm tall we planted them out into the first two test beds. Bed one was divided into quadrants and the soils in each of the four beds matched the soils in the pots except the compost component was mixed 50:50 by volume with sieved garden soil. The fourth plot for the control plants was a 50:50 vol mix of compost and garden soil
Updates
We will provide updates on this trial as it proceeds.
Our other trials include – Biochar inoculation vs germination rates and Marmande Superprecoce tomatoes