Baby Red Romaine
Yuma County produced about 14,000 acres of baby leaf salad items
in 2007. In Yuma, planting starts the beginning of October and
continues until the middle of February. The convenience of prewashed, pre-cut, bagged baby leaf salads has helped boost the
bagged salads since 1998.
Bagged salads may have revolutionized the produce aisles of the
supermarket as more prepared vegetables (diced onions, chopped
celery) have started to appear alongside bagged salads, suggesting
to consumers that they can have a wider variety of vegetables for
cooking or sandwich making with very little work. Sales of bagged salad mixes grew over
20.5% between 2002 and 2007.
Romaine lettuce is the most nutrient rich lettuce and one can tell this just by looking at it. Its
darker color indicates it's more nutritious and more flavor as well. This dark leafy red contains anthocyanin and xeazanthin, carotenoids that help keep eyes healthy.
Romaine varieties of lettuce can be kept in a refrigerator for up to a week after purchase. Do not
store lettuce next to bananas, apples, pears or tomatoes. The ethylene that these fruits give off
will brown lettuce prematurely.
One pound of Romaine lettuce leaves equals roughly six cups. Lettuce is one of the more popular
vegetables in America, after the potato.
Romaine is the American term for this long leafed lettuce, also called cos or cos lettuce (mainly
with those from Britain) because it is said to have originated on the Greek island of Cos (Kos),
off the coast of Turkey in the Aegean Sea.
Romaine has been cultivated and eaten cooked or raw for almost 5,000 years and is probably the
oldest form of cultivated lettuce.
Egyptian tombs reveal paintings of lettuce with long, pointed leaves, resembling Romaine.
A white latex oozes from its leaf base and the thicker ribs of older, larger leaves. This is reflected
in the first syllable of its Latin name, Lactuca, which means milk. Lettuce juice was used as a
medicine by many ancient herbalists.
Baby red romaine lettuces are grown at a very high density where the leaves are harvested at very
young stage.
The leaves can be harvested, washed and pre-packaged in a leafy-green mixture that may include
Japanese mustard (Brassica campestris), red mustard (Brassica juncea), tah tsai (Brassica
campestris), multiple lettuce (Lactuca sativa) cultivars, spinach (Spinacia oleracea), arugula
(Eruca sativa) and Swiss chard (Beta vulgaris).
The most popular baby leaf varieties are ready to harvest between 28-35 days after planting and
can be harvested repeatedly.
The beauty of a baby leaf salad is the combination of many different tastes and textures that range
from sweet, soft, subtle or bitter.
While baby leaf salads are generally harvested by a machine, head lettuce is cut by hand. Producers aim to cool the salad leaves to 37°F within 2 hours of leaving the field.
When baby leaf salad varieties are ready for harvest, highly specialized harvesting machines with
a capability of cutting over 15,000 Lbs. per hour are used.
Harvested leaves are transferred to state-of-the-art packing houses, the leaves are chilled, and
packed into 'sterile and ready-to-eat’ bags.
The baby leaf varieties are planted at extremely high seeding rates (up to three million seed per
acre) and grown to the four- to eight-leaf stage.
Machine harvesting has reduced harvesting cost from 28 cents per pound to less than 1 cent per
pound. Harvesting speeds are about 3 mph.
In Spring mix and baby red romaine varieties, there may be as many as 30 rows on the top of a
wide, 84 inch bed.
Bed preparation is particularly critical for the baby red romaine growers since these crops are usually mechanically harvested and the bed surface must be very level and smooth for the mechanical harvesters to work well and not get soil into the harvested crop.
Baby leaf crops on wide beds are typically irrigated using overhead sprinkler because of the high
plant populations and the wide bed configurations.
The acreage in wide beds will continue to increase as growers continue to increase yields and reduce per unit production costs.
Many baby leaf varieties have heavier and slightly longer leaves to enhance harvest. Many baby
leaf varieties are heat resistant and have the capacity to regrow rapidly for multiple cuttings.
The smaller, bite-size leaves and the convenience of washed, read-to-eat produce have made baby
leaf salads more attractive to consumers.
Kurt Nolte is an area agriculture agent with the Yuma County Cooperative Extension. He can be
reached at 928-726-3904.