Collards

Hello, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. At the Coastal Research and Development Center 2023 brassica field day we saw a field with several hundred different collard green plants growing in it. There’re two major types of collards, one is cabbage-like plants that have a head with leaves surrounding them. The other non-heading type which is what most of us are familiar with, has a stalk that grows upright with new leaves being produced as the plant gets larger. Two plant scientists, Powell Smith and Mark Fortnum, of Clemson Extension and the U S D A, respectively, were worried about the lack of genetic collard material available for breeding programs if new problems developed. They got a grant to travel through the so called collard belt, spotting small fields and gardens with fields with types of collards growing in them.