The Alternative Crops Team investigates crops that are not commercially grown in Florida on a large scale, evaluating their suitability for Florida production and notifying growers about promising candidates. Presently, these include artichoke, blackberry, hops, industrial hemp and pomegranate. The Team's long-range goal is to create new markets and enable growers to diversity their operations to improve profitability and sustainability. To accomplish this, the Team's 10 members employ interdisciplinary research approaches to select or develop crop varieties well-suited to Florida growing conditions, optimize crop-management practices, develop pest-management recommendations and evaluate the potential market and demand for new products.