Evergreen & Best-K: More Quality and Yield on Lettuce Crop

Increasing Quality and Yield on Lettuce Crop

Location: Marina, California

Farm: Boutonnet Farms

CCA/PCA: Andres Tapia, Grow Seven Technical Sales Rrepresentative.

Goal

To validate efficacy and ROI of Grow Seven’s nutritional program based on Evergreen and Best-K, on head lettuce.

Summary

Boutonnet Farms, and independent grower operation that produces a variety of vegetables in the Salinas Valley, collaborated with Grow Seven to trial Evergreen and Best-K, to verify their effect on crop yield and quality in head Lettuce.

Method of Analysis

Boutonnet Farms direct seed their head Lettuce, when lettuce is planted in June in the Salinas Valley it usually takes 45 days to Harvest. Omar Tostado, Ranch manager for Boutonnet Farms, has developed a fertilizer program for head lettuce.

We recommended additional applications of Evergreen and Best-K, to boost the effectiveness of the crop program. This modification would be tested vs. the grower standard (control). The grower program for head lettuce incorporates 3 applications of AN20 at 20 gallons per acre, every 10 days.

The applications for this trial were as follows:
Application 1: Took place on July 9, using only 20 gallons/ac of AN20
Application 2: Took place on July 19, using 20 gallons/ac AN20, 32oz/ac Evergreen, and 32oz/ac Best-K.
Application 3: Took place on July 29, a repeat of the prior application.

The Lettuce was harvested on August 4,and the trial results compared total crates from the treated block and from the Grower standard block (control) .

Results

The Grower standard block, Molera 9 – a 10.2 acre block, reported a total of 11,514 crates (size 24). This was equivalent to 1,129 crates/ac. The Grow Seven trial block, Molera 30 – a 9.4 acre block, reported a total of 11,013 crates (size 24). This was equivalent to 1,171 crates/ac. The treated acres had a significant increase in yield total of 42 more creates per acre.

Conclusions

• The combination of Evergreen and Best-K had a positive impact in improving head lettuce yield and quality.
• The program increased yields by 4.2 percent.
• This trial yielded a return of +93% or ~+$580/acre