The effect of sunshine and cloud cover on tropical Belize vegetable growing.

GROWING VEGETABLES FOR PROFIT IN BELIZE

   I had an interesting query the other day.  About what vegetables you could grow in 1 acre backyard, to make a living in Belize.  The questions had to do with water, cloud cover and sunshine.

  My three year research in hydroponic vegetable growing, showed that irregardless of whether you tried to stagger your vegetable crops, to take advantage of temporary market shortages and thus get a better price.

  It didn't work out that way.  While hydroponics allows you to space crops, so you do not in theory have a glut.  What happened was that the dictating factors for ripening and picking, are the amount of cloud cover and sunshine.  All the vegetables more or less hit the local markets at the same time, irregardless if you were planting in soil, or via hydroponics.  There may be a few days difference, but essentially, when the sun shines, everything ripens at the same time.