Noah Newman: Hey, this is Noah with Bright Agrotech.
Today we're going to talk about lettuce.
Germination for most lettuce is about 4-12 days.
Transplant time from seed to when we transplant towers about 3-4 weeks.
Time to sale is about 5-6, and we usually harvest, we always harvest our lettuce, just
cut off the whole head and then replant.
The pH range is about 6.2. 6.4 is perfect, but they can range anywhere between 6 and
7.5.
The light requirement is a full day.
A good 12 hours is perfect, but they'll do well 8-10.
In the winter they grow a little bit slower but they don't bolt out.
They don't seed out.
The plant height, really it just depends.
The structure of the plant depends on variety.
You see right here we've got some Amish deer tongue lettuce that's about ready.
It's probably a good ten inches in diameter but we're growing the sparks lettuce that
gets about 24 inches in diameter so it just depends on variety.
Is seed expensive?
No, just like most seed unless you're getting some rare variety of something.
It's not expensive and you get a lot of it from pretty cheap.
Are they hard to germinate?
No.
If you just follow the instructions and do it right then you can germinate them in about
6-12 days really easily.
The seedling look like, I mean they look like little lettuce heads.
It's really kind of hard to describe.
They just look like little lettuce heads.
What's it taste like, a little sweet.
There's a little bitterness to the end, but honestly, lettuce just kind of depends on
what you put on it.
That's why people put dressing on it.
If you let it go too long it gets really, really bitter, so that's how you know if it's
gone to long.
The environment that it prefers is usually a more cool environment, just like the last
video here in Laramie in the dead of summer, it's still pretty cool.
It grows great all year round.
In our high tunnel outside we do it spring, summer, and fall, so it likes cool temperatures.
It gets too hot and it'll burn up.
The pests we deal with, again, like most things, the powdery mildew and aphids.
We don't really deal with anything else.
We do a pretty good job.
I think a few years ago we had a bit of a spider mite breakout and that was kind of
scary because those things can take over, but we nipped that in the bud.
Other than that, really aphids and powdery mildew.
We deal with that he same way, active management and a little bit of spraying.
Is it hard to grow?
No, it's not.
If you follow the directions that are usually given to you on the seedling packet, you can
grow this stuff pretty easily especially if you have the right equipment for it, but even
if you don't you can throw the crap in the ground and it'll grow.
It's not too bad.
Some of the varieties we grow, this Amish deer tongue which he get from Baker Creek
which is probably my favorite lettuce, some romaine, a bunch of different types of romaine.
We do some leafy, new fires variety, we do some leafy greens.
We're doing a new romaine variety for one of our restaurants and it's called sparks.
I mentioned it earlier.
It's romaine that you grow out for the heart, so it grows out real big and then you pull
back most the leaves so then you get he heart in the middle and they use it for special
Caesar salads and stuff.
How popular is it?
Most of our lettuce in our CSA we sell a little bit to some of our chefs around town, but
lettuce is one of the most popular greens out there.
People like it, but it's just common.
Pro tips, make sure that you don't let it grow too long.
That's the most common mistake.
People say, "Oh, we don't have to harvest this week.
We can wait til next week."
The moment you see the head get a little bit spindly you want to cut it out.
Here's the example of kind of that spindly-ness I was talking about.
It's starting to bolt out is what the term is we use.
You can tell when it starts shooting up like that.
This lettuce is still good right at this point.
We'll harvest it today, but another couple days would not be good.
You can see right here how the heads start to curl in on itself.
That's another tell of it getting too mature.
Make sure that they don't dry up.
That's the biggest loss of lettuce that we have is that maybe one of our lines gets plugged
up.
Somebody misses it and if it's a hot day in just a couple hours it will fry those things.
Other than that it's pretty easy stuff to grow.
Just make sure you stay on top of your harvesting and enjoy it.