At James Light's farm near Meadows of Dan, 108 plantings of about 36 varieties of broccoli are being studied to see which are able to handle Virginia's humid and fluctuating weather.

Source: The Roanoke Times www.roanoke.com Bringing broccoli back East A Carroll County farm is the site of an experiment to grow broccoli that's fresher and cheaper than West Coast varieties. By Lindsey Nair | The Roanoke Times Travis Bunn, a Virginia extension agent in Carroll and Patrick counties, pulls back the leaves of a well-domed broccoli floret in James Light's field. At James Light's farm near Meadows of Dan, 108 plantings of about 36 varieties of broccoli are being studied to see which are able to handle Virginia's humid and fluctuating weather. A successful variety could result in the East taking up to one-seventh of the country's market for broccoli, says Virginia Cooperative Extension agent Wythe Morris. Stephanie Klein-Davis | The Roanoke Times James Light, the son of a cabbage farmer, used to grow 60 to 70 acres of cabbage but now only puts in about 20. "Young people don't eat cabbage," he says. "I just think the broccoli market has more future." MEADOWS OF DAN -- At 9 a.m. on a late July morning, the heat was poised and ready to validate weathermen's predictions. The thermometers would register 95 degrees somewhere in Southwest Virginia that day. In James Light's broccoli field, a good 17 acres perched on the edge of the Blue Ridge Parkway near Meadows of Dan, the humans were suffering. And if the humans were suffering, the broccoli surely was not happy. Virginia Cooperative Extension agents Wythe Morris and Travis Bunn were there to walk two long, thick rows of the leafy, cruciferous vegetables. Under the sun, they counted florets, gauged head quality and size and recorded data for 36 kinds of broccoli, all planted as part of an experiment to see if exceptional, marketable broccoli can be grown on the East Coast.