Working or Interested in Working on an Organic Vegetable Farm?
Organic farming often entails trade-offs, but such trade-offs come with benefits:
- Pest and disease control methods may be more expensive or less effective, but the result is pesticide-free produce.
- The cost of production may occasionally be higher; but, your produce will appeal to a section of clients who are willing to pay any price for cleaner food.
- An organic vegetable farm must do things differently in order to be commercially viable: not only in how they cultivate their veggies, but also in how they advertise them.
“Discover the techniques required to tap into the commercial organic vegetable market; this long course gives a lot of knowledge and practical skills and tells you how to market your produce. Organic veggies are long-term crops.” Adriana Fraser Cert.Hort., Cert.Child Care, Adv.Cert.App.Mgt., Cert 1V Assessment and Training, Dip.Hort., ACS Tutor.
Improve your veggie growing skills!
Lesson Structure
There are 12 lessons in this course:
- Introduction
- Organic Growing and it’s definitions
- Influential people in the organic movement
- Different ways to grow -permaculture, biodynamics, etc.
- Organic certification
- Transition to organic production
- Management Plan
- Industry awareness
- Resources and Networking
- Understanding Plant Names
- Cultivation and Planting
- Cultivation methods
- Crop rotation
- Green manures
- No dig growing
- Planting
- Sowing vegetable seed outside
- Germinating indoors
- Transplanting seedlings
- Crowns, offsets, tubers
- Crop scheduling
- Tillage, Ripping, Harrowing, Dis ploughing, etc
- Tractors
- Soils and Nutrition
- Physical soil properties -profile, texture, etc
- Chemical properties -pH, cation exchange capacity, buffering etc.
- Soil water, air, temperature
- Humus and Organic matter
- Nutrient elements
- Organic Fertilizers
- Animal manure
- Liquid feeds in an organic system
- Rock dusts
- Diagnosing nutritional problems
- Soil Management
- Importance of soil
- Cultivation techniques
- Cover crops
- Green manures
- Nitrogen fixation
- Rhizobium bacteria
- Mycorrhizae
- Composting
- Hot heaps vs cold
- Review of Major Vegetable Varieties
- Getting the best from an organic vegetable plot
- Vegetable Directory -Beans, Beetroot, Broccoli, Sprouts, Cabbage, Capsicum, Carrot, Cauliflower, Corn, Celery, Eggplant. Lettuce, Onion, Pak Choi, Parsnip, Pea, Potato, Pumpkin, Marrow, Squash, Radish, Spinach Turnip
- Transplanting Guide
- Pests and Disease
- Integrated Pest Management
- Allowable Inputs
- Understanding Pest and Disease
- Understanding Other Plant Problems
- Lifecycles
- Review of common problems
- Companion Planting
- Seed
- Organic seed
- Seed production -preventing cross pollination
- Choosing seed plants for vegetable crops
- Collecting seeds
- Cleaning and storing seed
- Seed germination
- Greenhouse Growing
- Types of greenhouses
- Framing and covering materials
- What greenhouse is appropriate
- Siting a greenhouse
- Benching
- Greenhouse hygiene
- Problems with greenhouses
- Other structures -cold frames, shade houses
- Environmental controls
- Heating, Cooling
- Controlling light
- Growing media
- Fertigation in organic systems
- Carbon dioxide enrichment
- Irrigation Methods
- Crops Directory -Tomatoes, Cucumber, Melons, Zucchini
- Lesser Grown Varieties and Herbs
- Growing herbs
- Review of many culinary herbs-Alliums, Coriander, Mints, Basil, Oregano, Rosemary, Pasley, Savory, Thyme, etc.
- Review of lesser grown vegetables -Amaranth, Artichoke, Asparagus, Cassava, Chicory, Dandelion, Garlic, Endive, Ginger, Horseradish, Chicory, Mint, Leek, Okra, Pigface, Rhubarb, Sweet Potato, Warrigal Greens, Taro, Yams, etc
- Irrigation
- Irrigation objectives and feasibility
- Soil and water
- Understanding classes of soil moisture
- Soil and transpiration
- Field capacity
- Permanent Wilting point
- Tensiometers
- When to irrigate
- Scheduling irrigation
- When to irrigate
- Cyclic watering
- Pulse watering
- Plant root depth
- Irrigation type -flood, sprinkler, trickle etc.
- Portable, permanent or travelling sprinklers
- Sprinkler spacings
- Mulching and Weeds
- Understanding mulch
- Types of mulch materials
- Rules for using mulch
- Living mulch
- Weed Management
- Preventing weeds
- Harvesting and Marketing
- Harvesting techniques
- PostHarvest quality considerations
- Harvesting hints
- Post harvest treatment of vegetables -field processing
- Cooling
- Quality standards
- Monitoring and reviewing
- Marketing
- Business capabilities
- Market research
- Target marketing
- Understanding economics
Each lesson culminates in an assignment which is submitted to the school, marked by the school’s tutors and returned to you with any relevant suggestions, comments, and if necessary, extra reading.
Aims
- Discuss the fundamentals of horticulture and plant taxonomy.
- Demonstrate soil qualities and their relevance to organic plant production by describing a variety of cultivation and planting procedures.
- Determine the basic soil nutrient deficits.
- Distinguish between major and minor commercial vegetable varieties.
- Explain several pest and disease management principles.
- Discuss seed storage, viability, germination, genetic purity, and hybridization in commercial organic agriculture.
- Explain the fundamentals of greenhouse farming.
- Explain various irrigation technologies that are ideal for organic vegetable cultivation.
- Describe organic weed control strategies.
- Discuss concerns about vegetable harvesting and marketing.
How You Plan to Act
- Create reference lists for organic fertilisers, pest control products, industry connections, and vegetable types.
- Analyze the benefits and drawbacks of agricultural machinery and products.
- Create a no-dig garden and keep track of its development
- Sort the soils.
- Analyze the function of soil organisms.
- Determine nutrient inadequacies, such as a lack of nitrogen.
- Create composts
- Analyze plant kinds and seed sources
- run germination and planting tests
- Analyze the benefits and drawbacks of greenhouse farming.
- Analyze the irrigation concepts.
- Trial mulching, please
- Examine the retail vegetable prices, packaging, and presentation.
Natural Systems
Open pollinated cultivars (i.e., those that are pollinated by insects or the wind) and/or organically produced seed should be used wherever possible in organic systems. When seeds have been produced in accordance with an organic standard (such as IFOAM) for at least one generation, they are typically regarded as being organic.
Today, accredited specialised seed growers, accredited seed merchants, and seed-savers networks (which frequently house “seed-banks”) all offer a wide range of organic and open pollinated seeds. These seed providers, who are frequently tiny businesses or family operations, contribute to the preservation of the genetic gene-pool, the quality of open-pollinated, hybrid, and heirloom varieties, and their genetic variety. The seed must come from a trustworthy supplier, ideally one that is accredited, as this reduces the possibility of weed seeds being contaminated and increases seed quality.
Reproduction
The male portion of the flower, or pollen, fertilises the flower’s ovary to generate seed (ie. the female part). The seed will develop into a plant that is identical to the parent plant if the pollen originates from the same species as the ovary. The seed will grow into a plant that will have traits from both of the parents if the pollen and ovary are from different plants (cross pollination).
For plants, there are primarily two reproductive categories:
- Self-pollinating – pollen is transmitted from the male anther to the female stigma on the same flower and same plant. This means that less space is needed between variations of the same species to maintain genetic variety and that genetic diversity can be maintained with fewer plants. Two examples of self-pollinating plants are beans and tomatoes.
- Cross-pollination: Pollen is transmitted from one plant’s anther to another plant’s stigma by wind, insects, or manual pollination. Cross-pollinators who frequently inbreed may lose their vigour and quality in succeeding generations. Cross-pollination between varieties of the same species should be avoided in order to avoid this.
Pollination may be through three means:
- Wind-pollinated species might be self-pollinators or cross-pollinators. In strong winds, pollen can travel many kilometres, hence barriers and isolation intervals are necessary to prevent pollen from transferring across kinds.
- The movement of insects between flowers facilitates pollination. In order to promote pollination, you need learn which insect species are attracted to particular blooms. In an open setting, insect-pollinated types need to be at least a kilometre apart to prevent cross-pollination between species.
- Cross-pollination within species is less common when a species is self-pollinating, although it is not completely eliminated. Cross-pollination is facilitated by the long, projecting styles of several self-pollinating plant species. It would be necessary to segregate these species from other subspecies of the same species.
WHAT CAN YOU ACHIEVE FROM THIS COURSE?
- Anyone interested in working in this field should start with this course.
- If you’re considering starting a farm that grows organic vegetables for profit, take this course.
- You will learn all the essentials in this course to advance in this field with assurance.
- Understand the transitioning process if you own property and want to start selling organic products.
- Learn the requirements for growing and marketing your produce as “organically certified.”
- Learn from instructors who have years of expertise and understanding.
