Brassicas species in Brazil: Brief informations

Date:10-16-2018

Brassicas are an important group of vegetable crops in Brazil. The National Vegetable Center of EMBRAPA carried an study about Brassicas channel published in 2017 and from which we could get some info like the ones below:

1. The study was done on key brassicas growing regions and focus several aspects since the production phase until commercialization.
    
2. States in South East and South region of Brazil (see map below) was the main concentration for the brassicas crops and represents 92% of the brocoli, cauliflower and cabbage production
   
   
   source-CNPH-Embrapa
    
3. The 3 above mentioned species are the most cultivated brassicas species in Brazil, folowed by Collard. Chinese cabbage is cultivated in small area.
    
4. The study includes also species like Rocket (Euruca sativa); Radish (Raphanus sativus); Watergrass (Rorippa nasturtium-aquaticum); Kohlrabi (Brassica oleracea var. gongylodes); Mustard (Brassica juncea); and Turnip. On this group Rocket and Watergrass are the most important
    
5. Generally speaking the production of Brassicas are more common on good weather season for it like winter and spring, and therefore a large availability provoke prices reduction while on difficult season to produce it -summer and autumn- where heavy rainfall and high temperatures makes more difficult the production and so used to be a good seasom for higher prices for growers.
    
6. The study used as a base the production information from 2006, since the new survey done by IBGE(Brazilain Statistics Institute) in 2011 was not loaded into the system. Of course this is an old info, but traditional regions on growing such crops remaind doing it.
    
7. Based on it in 2006 and for Brocolis, 92% of total volume produced was in the States of Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Rio Grande do Sul , Parana, Santa Catarina and Minas Gerais
    
8. For Cauliflower the States of São Paulo. MinasGearis, Parana . Rio Grande do Sul, Rio de Janeiro and santa Catarina produced 91,7% of the volume.
    
9. For Cabbage the States of São Paulo, Parana, Minas Gerais, Espirito Santo, Rio Grande do Sul and Goais produced 79% of the total.
    
10. Brocolis- after 2006 some other sources indicates that Brocolis area in 2009 in Brazil was about 8.460 has for head brocoli and 6.958 has for sprouted brocoli, in a total of 15.418 ha (ABCSEM, 2009).
     
11. Cauliflower-in 2009, the total sowed with summer varieties was 5.675 ha, and about 5.550 with winter cultivars making a total of 11225. They estimate this planted area increased to more than 12000 has after it.
     
12. Cabbage- the planted are with cabbage in Brazil was considered about 30.070 ha, being 95% of it for green cabbage. Other source in 2011 indicates a totoal of 34.500 ha. São Paulo State in estimate to plant about 6100 has of it while Parana States about 8500 has of it.
     
13. Below a Brazilian map by States to facilitated the understanding

Others info

Beasides the info collected and produced by the Vegetable Center of EMBRAPA we can add some info like:

1. Head brocoli- Brazil had in the past (maybe 20 years ago) only sprouted brocolis production, After it, head brocoli started to be introduced and it had a very good growth. One of the reason for it is the frozen industry that today absorb a high percentage of the production, but for sure fresh market is also very important.
    
2. Cabbage- market in Brazil is more than 90% for green color types. The red cabbage has a small preference and represent of course a limited planted area.
    
3. Cauliflower- The market in summer is still dominated by hybrids developed in Brazil. Hybrids coming from outside Brazil shows adaptation in mid season and winter season, but in summer only tropical hybrids are able to survice and produce good crop.
    
4. Seedlings- since seedlings started to be offered for the brassicas species the market moved a lot to this procedure to initicate the crop. So now days majority of species are planted with seedslings that growers buy from plant raisers.
    
5. Hybrids- on the 3 above species the percentage of hybrids utilization is very high, so only few regions use open polinated cultivars. Hybrids are sold by seed units, and usually sold in foil package. High quality seeds are a market demand since plant raisers wants to have maximum seedlings per seed package they sow.
    
6. In view of the Brazilina tropical conditions in severla growing regiones disease resistance is a key fetaures in hybrids to be sucessuful.

Photos:


Above- summer hybrids leading cauliflower market in Brazil


Above- Xanthomonas disease is a critical issue for brassicas in Brazil.



Above- green color cabbage with semi flat head type is the preferred one in Brazil. Red are small amrket percentage.

Below-(2 photos)- largest farm producing head brocoli in Brazil- they plant about 500 hectares per year. Majority of prodcution goes to frozen