[Market-farming] Baby Squash

Bill Shoemaker wshoemak at illinois.edu
Thu May 21 16:47:35 EDT 2009


>I am a middle school math teacher, but I don't know        
>either.  It is the same way with potatoes.  You can dig    
>and sell as "new potatoes" or wait and let them get        
>bigger.  At what point do size, yield, and price all       
>cross?  If school wasn't out tomorrow, maybe we could work 
>on this.                                                   

Keep in mind there is a plant response to harvesting. As you harvest, you free the plant to set more fruit. If you leave fruit on the plant, those resources are tied up by the plant. I'm sure there are limits, but it might be a nice study to look at total production of crops at various harvest sizes and link harvest labor, market prices, salability and shrink to squash harvest size.

Bill

William H Shoemaker, UI-NRES
Sr Research Specialist, Food Crops
St Charles Horticulture Research Center
535 Randall Road  St Charles, IL  60174
630-584-7254; FAX-584-4610


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