The Effects of Early and Late-season Production with Row Cover Usage of Lettuce (Lactuca sativa) in High Tunnels

High tunnels are used to assist with extending the growing season of various crops, particularly cool season crops. During this extended season, row covers are often used within the high tunnels for additional temperature increase during the cool season to produce better crops and yields. In this experiment, the use of high tunnels and row covers wereexplored to extend the growing season of two brands of leaf lettuce. Organic Waldmann’s dark green lettuce, Lactuca sativa, was direct-seeded into four randomized 8.5 ft x 3.6 ft plots inside four high tunnels for early season planting. After 42-days from initial planting, Organic Black-Seeded Simpson lettuce was direct-seeded into four randomized 8.5 ft x 3.6 ft plots inside the four high tunnels for late season planting. Each of the four high tunnels had a total of eight randomized plots. Row covers were placed over the plots once germination was seen. There were two replications of each treatment per high tunnel giving a total of eight replicates. Wet weights versus dry weightswere collected to determine weight of the actual plant. Another method of quantifying the quality of crops grownis chlorophyll content and the leaf area. Soil will be analyzed to determine what factor it plays in the successful growth of each plant. We hypothesize that at harvest, there will be a significant difference between the row covered plots versus the non-row cover plots due to the increase in weather temperatures. I also hypothesize that the late season harvest will yield fewer crops than the early season crops. The yields of row cover vs. non-row cover lettuce as well as early season production versus late season production will be discussed.