Lets face it, lettuce is one of the fastest growing crops from transplanting to maturity. What makes it even more crucial is that the whole plant is harvested, unlike parsley or tomatoes where the harvest period can be extended. The great advantage is that more than one crop can be harvested per year, so staggering [...]
Tipburn in lettuce has been a problem since the first farmer planted lettuce. Any grower will at some stage have the problem occur to some extent on his farm during warmer periods. The classic tipburn symptom is necrosis of the tips of rapidly growing young leaves. Tipburn is visible externally on butterhead and cos types, [...]
An iceberg lettuce head that is solid will always sell. Just watch people buying lettuce, they always feel the compactness of the heads first and then look at the size. Compactness first then size. Getting a good iceberg lettuce with good head formation starts with a variety first for the specific climate it is planted [...]
It is often quite difficult to identify a deficiency or toxicity symptom in the field because they never really occur as a single element deficiency or toxicity. Each of the elements are inter dependent and they influence each other within certain ratio’s. One would find for instance that phosphorus toxicity, is expressed as either a [...]
Lettuce was cultivated in 4500 B.C. in the Mediterranean basin. Only in 1543 was the first know head lettuce produced in Europe. Lettuce was first cultivated for the edible oils that the leaves produce. Only later, in Egypt, was lettuce leaves eaten raw. There are four lettuce types cultivated for the fresh market, these are: [...]
Planting density in bag culture systems Pepper & tomato planting density influences yields, diseases and quality of the end product. Get it right the first time. Peppers are planted in the same density as tomatoes in hydroponic bag culture systems. Each plant should be 40 cm apart in the double rows, the double rows should [...]