Season Extension

by Yvette Henson Earlier this year, March 22, I wrote an article for this blog about season extension and our High Altitude Season Extension research trials in the San Miguel Basin (San Miguel and West Montrose Counties in SW Colorado).In that article, I said I would post a follow up article about the different crops we have grown under covers and how they have performed.This is that article.
We have been conducting season extension trials since 2011.Our raised bed trial beds are located in Telluride at 8750’ elevation.Telluride has about a 60 day frost-free growing season from mid to late June till the end of August/early September. In the previous blog post I gave a summary of what we have learned about growing under the different season extension covers that we chose and best uses for each cover based on how crops perform grown under them. The materials we chose for our covers are (left to right, in the above photo):  Agribon Ag30, a medium weight (0.9 oz/yd2) spun-bonded polypropylene