Dr. Nate Storey: All right, this is Nate Storey with Bright Agrotech and I'm going to
talk about parsley. So this is a tower of Italian large leaf parsley.
I grabbed it from the back of the tower mass, it was one of the more manageable towers.
This crop gets big so don't plant large leaf parsley unless you expect some really big
statured plants to be growing in your towers. That can be a good thing, that can be a bad
thing. This tower, even though it was at the back and kind of shaded it still looks pretty
darn good and it was certainly one of the smaller towers out there. Parsley is a great
crop. A lot of people love it, a lot of people want to use it. Anything Italian and especially
in a lot of summer salads and dishes where they want a crisp and a fresh flavor Italian
large leaf parsley is a great addition to any of those recipes. It's in high demand
over the summer but it grows really well year round.
As a crop it is kind of a slow germinator so we're 3-4 weeks on germination depending
on your facilities and it's about another 3-4 weeks before transplant. Once it's transplanted
you're looking at about 5 weeks before it starts to be harvestable. The great thing
about this crop is that you can harvest it again and again and again and it will just
keep doing this vegetative reproduction as long as you keep your temperatures in your
greenhouse cool. It likes the cooler temperatures. Hayden down here at BayBerry Fresh actually
starts a lot of his parsley in the middle of the winter and it will grow quite well
through the winter all though it prefers 12-18 hours of day length you can grow it on less
and it will grow. In that regard it's a great crop, it's really easy to start early. Because
it's this continual harvest crop all of that investment of time on the front end pays off
because you can cut it again and again and again and it just keeps regrowing.
Parsley does prefer a PH somewhere between 6 and 7. Kind of an average PH, it doesn't
like things too super acidic and it doesn't like things basic. You stick between 6 and
7 and you're going to be really happy with it. The only thing that is does like is some
of those cooler production temperatures. Although it's a really hearty crop and it will survive
some of the hot flashes that you might get in a greenhouse where your temperatures spike.
It can be a really great crop for producers, 1 it's fairly easy to grow, it takes a little
time to get it established, it's easy to grow, it's very hearty, it tolerates a lot of different
PH ranges and EC ranges but by and large you're shooting for somewhere between 6 and 7. It's
very happy with just about everything else. As a crop it's got great flavor and especially
when it's grown hydroponically or aquaponically with lots of water. It tends to be a crop
that grows very quickly and produces lots of nice big leaves. A lot of the time the
restaurant chefs and the super markets aren't actually even use to seeing parsley of this
stature because what they're getting is this kind of wilted sad stuff on a truck. Being
able to offer them fresh parsley with nice big leaves a lot at a time, they're very sweet,
can be a great thing for you as a small producer. Seed is not particularly expensive with parsley
and again, because it is a continual harvest crop you don't have to worry about planting
seed that often. That's a really great thing for producers. The less planting you can be
doing, the more harvesting you can be doing means you're making more money.
There are a lot of different varieties of parsley, the two most common ones are a frilled
leaf parsley and there are a number of different names in that category of parsleys and they
are mostly a garnish. They don't have the best flavor, they tend to be pretty tough.
The parsley that's used mostly for cooking is your Italian large leaf. That's what this
plant is here. It's got great flavor and it can have a very sweet flavor to it. Lots of
aromatics which means that fresh it is so much better than anything that's been cut
for any period of time. It's not particularly prone to pests. Another
great thing about parsley you don't have to worry about things getting gout of control.
I have seen aphids on it, I have on occasion seen thrips in some growers greenhouses with
parsley but by and large it's a really hearty crop and you don't have to worry too much
about pests. All right, thanks so much for tuning in and
learning a little bit more about parsley with us. If you have more questions check out the
blog and check out our recommended crops list. We go into a lot more detail there.
Thanks so much for watching and if you find value in this please do subscribe.