To slow a Cauliflower from flowering

[richardw]

My daughter is growing a block of Cauliflowers for seed crop,we were told in the spring that if we planted them straight away they would flower and produce seed in the one season which i even thought then that that may well be the case for the Koanga people up north but i was not so sure down this way, but still,she got them going anyway.
Well its mid summer now and the Cauliflowers plants are huge but are only now looking at forming heads which is far far too late for enough time to produce seed before the end of the growing season.
My question is would removing these heads help hold the plants till winter with the idea coming away in spring and flower then instead.
www.koanga.org.nz/shop/seeds/cauliflower-ruapehu

[raymondo]

When I cut off the flowering stems of cabbages to delay flowering it did just that, delayed it. It didn't 'reset' them. They produced more flower stems straight away but that was sufficient for my purposes.
If it were me, I'd simply leave the cauliflowers. Or do you think frosts will kill the plants? If that's the case, then it seems like you have little choice but to remove the flowers stems and hope that this 'resets' the cauliflowers' developmental clock.

[richardw]

I think if they flowered before winter they may well die,oh well we have nothing to lose by trying,if i had known i would have got her to sow the seed about now

[bunkie]

richard, wouldn't cooling the plants down a bit with something like shade slow down the flowering?

[richardw]

I dont know bunkie,providing some sort of shading may work but our problem would be the covering,the size of the area and plus the wind we get here would make it a nightmare to cover.