The primary cropping system used in the Hort 325 plots will be single or double rows on top of a raised bed. The raised bed will be four feet wide, from the middle of the furrow on one side of the bed to the middle of the furrow on the other side.
Students can choose to grow either an organic or a non-organic plot.
Unfortunately it is not possible for any one student to grow plots both ways, because a specific section of the field has been set aside for each cropping system and the logistics would make it impossible. Both organic and non-organic methods work well and produce almost identical yields. Your decision to produce using one or the other of these methods should probably be based on your philosophy as much as any other factor since both methods work well and require about the same amount of effort. These plots will be fertilized with commercial fertilizer and pest control may employ synthetic chemicals. Whereas a commercial vegetable grower would lease new land for cropping vegetables every two to three years, we have had to use the same land for the last twenty or more years.