Direct sowed okras on 26.5 under plastic and cloth. A couple of days ago they had started to emerge. Seeds are self saved kandahari pendi landrace (which to be fair must have gone through a bottleneck before it got to me. Very little visible variance compared to pictures I have seen) which might or might not have crossed with clemson spineless and mixes from @Tanjaeskildsen and @marcela_v . It might have been a little cold for Tanjas as only a few have emerged, but even that would be nice for added variance. Marcelas seem even better than mine. They clearly have more diversity than mine, but I also saved anything that possibly could have viable seeds which might make them overall a bit more irregular.
This years plan is just to mix up as much as possible so I’m playing it as sure as it’s possible here. Plastic tunnel can be on as long as reasonable. Nights it will still get quite cold inside the tunnel. I haven’t measured, but would assume 5-10C/41-50F. Plenty cold to make some selection. There is about 10m2 for them which should hold about 30-40 mature plants. Coming years I’d like to remove plastic tunnel and that in mind I soved just a small spot with squash and sweetcorn under cloth to see how much it’s possible to push them.
It is wonderful to see how they are doing in Finland. I had some varieties that produced seeds in pods even after frost, and I found some seeds in dry pods after Winter. So, if you got lucky and some of them got to you, I am sure they will handle the difference in weather quite well.
This year I am testing them for drought. I sowed them around May 15th, then it rained just once. I watered them also just once since then until now. They are still quite small because there was no rain, but I am sure many will be able to adapt. Maybe I water them next week since heat will continue.
They should be pretty well adapted to drought.
I never water my okra and they grow through summer 100+°F with no rain and keep producing until frost/freeze.
The development must have stopped by the frost and the seeds were already ripe enough. Once they are dry they should tolerate any freeze. I think the positive trait is that they were able to ripen seeds before that frost, which probably is one of the coolest periods of their cropping period.
Lack of water might slow down early development, but I wouldn’t expect them to be that big less than a month from sowing. Also it might be due to coolness as okra tends to have different idea of what is acceptable . First years don’t need to be as harsh, but since you have plenty of season left as long as they stay alive the risks are small.
Some have emerged from the seeds I sowed with squash and sweetcorn. It took them double the time it took under plastic, but at least this shows that sowing under under cloth would work even in a bit cooler conditions. Now I had to take cloth off of them. We’ll see how they manage. Right now there will be couple of rainy days with highs under 15C/59F so they are really put to the test. Maybe next year I’ll know more about how much I can push them.
Removed the plastic from okras and put just the cloth on. I could have kept it on, and based on the weather forecast, maybe I should have. It’s not like they are the first to die from too much heat, but having at least some cool tolerance selection would be good even at this stage. They should still have time if july is even average warm. Long term forecast says july-september period should be warmer than average. So far it seems cold fronts have won and are winning in the near future. Still mostly highs under 20C/68F, but nights seem a little warmer after a couple of hotter days. It still warms up some under the cloth if it’s sunny even if it’s not that warm. The ones sown with the squashes and corn are still alive after several days of highs of 15C/59F without protection. Actually there isn’t even signs that they would suffer from coldness apart from very slow growth. Others are some behind from last year, but no more than how much later sowing was.
I have a bed of okra seedlings of which 80% died between the seed opening stage and 2 cotyledons. It seems that they didn’t like it at all 2 days in a row with 35°c (95°f), they turned yellow and wilted then brown…the soil was at zero moisture point, dust type.
They seem to need some water for this critical stage. I was away and hadn’t watered for 1 week.
On the other hand, the 20% that survived seem to be the earliest with true leaf stage. These have not moved and seem to be in great shape !
Bully Okra, a plant for the future that likes to suffer, but with a limit
The deluge did some selection and today I did some last selection. Growth has really picked up in the last week after it warmed up. Most if not all remaining plants have flower buds showing. Still takes a little while before they will open, but okra does have the benefit that it doesn’t take many weeks from flowering to ripen seeds. Only question is whether they will have warm enough weather once they flower. They still need some warmth to flower and pollinate. I’ll keep the cloth on for the rest of the season unless during flowering it’s well warm enough to flower so that pollinators can do most of the work.
I had some varieties that produced seeds in pods even after frost, and I found some seeds in dry pods after Winter. So, if you got lucky and some of them got to you, I am sure they will handle the difference in weather quite well.
. First years don’t need to be as harsh, but since you have plenty of season left as long as they stay alive the risks are small.
