Final report for FNC23-1365
Project Information
Franklinton Farms (FF) is a nonprofit urban farm in Columbus, OH. We grow on twelve scattered sites across a few blocks in our neighborhood. Our land base for growing vegetables totals about two acres, and we have 12 high tunnels that we use for growing crops year round. While not certified organic, we use organic methods, including no- and low-till soil management, fostering beneficial insect populations through native plants, and minimal spraying. We distribute our crops through a year-round CSA within our neighborhood, an online store with on site pickup, and vend at Columbus’ largest farmers market during all four seasons. Within the Franklinton neighborhood, which is a USDA-identified food desert, we distribute produce with a focus on making it accessible and affordable to our most vulnerable neighbors, offering our CSA on a sliding scale and delivering to our members’ doors. We distribute about $140,000 worth of produce each year, and salad mix is our most important crop, topping our list of crops by revenue each year. Last year we grew about $10,000 worth of salad mix. We also grow a wide variety of other greens, root crops, and fruiting crops.
Michelle Nowak, FF Farm Manager, will lead the project. She has been the Farm Manager at FF for four years, and prior to that managed a 7-acre certified organic farm in Maryland for five years. She also worked for a season each at a 30-acre biodynamic farm in Germany, an organic permaculture farm in New Hampshire, and a horse-powered organic farm in Upstate New York.
Michelle has led three seasons of successful on-farm research on summer lettuce production at FF. With this project on winter greens, Michelle and her team will be responsible for planning, planting, harvesting, and measuring our trial crops. As with our past research projects, Ohio State University Assistant Professor Gerald Carter will support the project with data analysis after farm staff finish data collection in spring 2024. We will collaborate with staff from OSU extension and the Ohio Ecological Food and Farming Association to share our results with growers throughout Ohio and the Midwest.
FF is also the convener for The Community Growers’ Network (CGN) is an initiative for Columbus-based Urban Farmers. The project benefits communities which are food deserts/apartheids—most of which are predominately African American. The proposed research will greatly impact these 7 local Farms—and reach many others!
Optimizing production in winter high tunnels relies on careful selection of crops, because winter plant growth is so slow and limited. Every year, we consider winter market demand and plant crops that we know will grow well, but carried out this project because we sought better data on the relative yields of our various potential salad mix ingredients so that we could make the most informed decisions about what to plant and how to use our precious tunnel space for the best winter yields.
Winter vegetable production provides growers with great opportunities to enter untapped markets, to distinguish themselves with niche products, and to spread their income through the year. At the winter Worthington Farmers Market, the largest farmers market in Columbus, we regularly sell out of our produce early in the market, suggesting that the market could accommodate additional growers. Still, Midwestern winter growers, especially as they’re starting out, may struggle to find information that will allow them to optimize their winter salad mix production. Research has confirmed that babyleaf brassicas and lettuce are among the top choices for generating income with winter growing, but with so many choices on the market, it’s hard to know which varieties generate the best returns.
For this project, we trialed 12 varieties of babyleaf brassicas, 2 varieties of lettuce, 1 lettuce mix, and 1 variety of arugula, seeding 12' blocks of each in unheated high tunnels in November and December of 2023. We harvested the greens in February and March, and found that our top-yielding varieties from these planting dates included three babyleaf brassicas: 'Carlton', 'Koji', and 'Vivid choi', and two lettuces: 'Green salad bowl' and 'Wildfire' lettuce mix.
Solution:
We trialed 8 varieties of cold tolerant babyleaf brassicas, 1 arugula, and 3 varieties of lettuce for salad mix by seeding each of these crops in our unheated high tunnels in 2.5’ x 12’ blocks on two different dates -- November 7 and December 5, 2023. For each planting date, all trial varieties were planted into the same tunnel. We chose trial varieties based on past experience, and input from other growers. We also choose varieties that have varying colors, textures, and shapes to create an appealing salad mix for customers. We’ve found that planting single varieties of brassicas and lettuce rather than mixes, and mixing the varieties post-harvest, allows for better yields and control for winter growing. Different varieties bolt at different times and some get freeze damage or disease while others remain unaffected. Our goal here was to find 4-6 varieties for optimal winter salad mix yields.
To prepare beds for planting, we broadforked, use a power harrow or tilther, apply organic fertilizer or compost as needed according to our soil tests, then direct seeded the crops into our high tunnel beds with a Jang JP-5 seeder with every other hopper filled, seeding 6 rows per 2.5’ wide bed for all crops. After seeding, beds were irrigated with micro sprinklers and covered with row cover to aid germination. Row cover was removed after germination, and left off except during periods of <20 degree F weather. Below 10 degrees F, we will covered the crops with two layers of row cover. Most of our tunnels have automatic louvre vents at the peak of each endwall. We also roll up tunnel sides to vent the tunnels when the tunnel temperatures reach >80F.
We aimed to get as many cuts as possible off of each planting, so we harvested crops above the growing tip for cut-and-come-again harvests, until bolting, at which point we harvested parts of the plants that were still tender enough for salad mix. We harvested with the Farmer’s Friend Quick-Cut Greens Harvester (https://www.farmersfriend.com/quick-cut-greens-harvester) when crops were sufficiently high quality and uniform, and otherwise cut by hand with serrated knives. We tracked the days to harvest for each crop, the number of harvests we were able to get throughout the winter season, the marketable yield (mass) per harvest, and the overall total mass we harvested per crop over the winter.
Objectives:
- Evaluate the relative yields of 8 babyleaf brassicas, 1 arugula, and 3 lettuce varieties planted in high tunnels on 2 different planting dates for winter harvests.
- Identify which 4-6 of these crops give the best yields for winter salad mix production.
- Share findings through quarterly Community Growers Network trainings, our website and social media, and a conference presentation
Cooperators
- - Producer
Research
We seeded our first planting of greens in one of our high tunnels on November 7, 2023. We used the 5 row Jang seeder, with every other hopper filled, to seed 12' blocks of each variety with 6 rows/30" bed of the following varieties:
Asian greens, 7 varieties: 'Vivid choi,' 'Tokyo Bekana,' 'Rosie,' 'Red Kingdom,' 'Red Cloud,' 'Koji,' 'Carlton'
Lettuce, 3 varieties: 'Wildfire mix,' 'Outredgeous,' 'Green salad bowl'
Baby Kale, 1 variety: 'KX-1'
Arugula, 1 variety: standard
On December 5, 2023, we seeded our second planting of greens in a second high tunnel. We used the 5 row Jang seeder, with every other hopper filled, to seed 12' blocks of each variety with 6 rows/30" bed of the following varieties:
Asian Greens, 5 varieties: 'Vivid Choi,' 'Carlton,' 'Koji,' 'Rosie,' 'Red Cloud'
Baby Kale, 1 variety: 'KX-1'
Lettuce, 3 varieties: 'Wildfire mix', 'Outredgeous', 'Green salad bowl'
We would have liked to do the first seeding about a month earlier, to be able to harvest them earlier in the winter, but the work got delayed due to farmer sickness. We tine weeded the plantings each 3 times, and hand weeded once.
We harvested the November-seeded plantings on February 8th and 15th, and the December-seeded plantings on February 29, March 7, and March 21. We harvested crops with a Farmer's Friend Quick-Cut Greens Harvester when quality and uniformity allowed, or by hand with a serrated knife when we had to harvest more selectively, for example when we had to avoid sections affected by disease, cold damage, or excessive bolting (we did harvested bolted crops when still tender, but avoided tough stems). We harvested each variety into its own tote, weighed crop plus tote together, then emptied and weighed the tote by itself using a digital scale.
Our top yielding crops from these trials included three babyleaf brassicas: 'Carlton', 'Koji', and 'Vivid choi', and two lettuces: 'Green salad bowl' and 'Wildfire' lettuce mix. From past experience, we also recommend 'Tokyo bekana' as a high-yielding winter tunnel green, but in this trial, it bolted quickly before yielding much for us with this late planting date, so we only recommend ‘Tokyo bekana’ for September-October seeding, or January-February seeding. One interesting takeaway for us was that even two varieties that seemed very similar in the catalog - 'Koji' and 'Carlton' - can both be well worth planting for the winter high tunnel, because they grow at different speeds and bolt at different times, and were both among the highest yielding crops we grew. 'Koji' grew and bolted the fastest, and because of this fast bolting we only harvested each planting once, but it was still a top yielder, due to its ability to grow and bulk up quickly. 'Carlton,' on the other hand, yielded multiple harvests -- two from the first planting and three from the second, so the staggered harvests were nice for our markets, though the overall yield was a bit lower than 'Koji.' 'Vivid choi' was a strong and steady yielder for us, slower to bolt than 'Koji' or 'Carlton,' and provided a nice color and shape contrast, with long, purplish leaves, in contrast with the rounded, cup-shaped green leaves of 'Koji' and 'Carlton.'
We were also somewhat surprised how well two of our three lettuce varieties did. We thought the babyleaf brassicas would out-yield lettuces in the winter window, but with March harvests from our December planting, 'Green salad bowl' and 'Wildfire mix' were among our top five yielding crops, with strong March yields from our December planting. Unfortunately, our November-planted lettuce was planted in a tunnel with Sclerotinia/lettuce drop pressure, and it succumbed to disease before reaching harvestable size, so we were not able to collect lettuce yield data from this first planting.
|
Variety |
Planting date |
Harvest Date |
Number of times this planting has been harvested |
Weight bin + crop (lbs.) |
Weight bin (lbs.) |
Crop weight (lbs.) |
Notes |
Total average no. of harvests per planting (no. of harvests / no. of plantings) |
Average total yield per 12' planting (lbs. / no. of plantings) |
Average total yield per 30" wide bed foot (total yield in lbs. / number of plantings / 12') |
|
Arugula |
11/7/23 |
2/8/24 |
1 |
7.87 |
5.59 |
2.28 |
|
|
|
|
|
Arugula |
11/7/23 |
2/15/24 |
2 |
6.34 |
5.6 |
0.74 |
|
|
|
|
|
Arugula - total |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
2 |
3.02 |
0.25 |
|
KX-1 Kale |
12/5/23 |
3/21/24 |
1 |
7.59 |
3.7 |
3.89 |
|
|
|
|
|
KX-1 Kale - total |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
1 |
3.89 |
0.32 |
|
Tokyo bekana |
11/7/23 |
2/8/24 |
1 |
9.93 |
5.6 |
4.33 |
|
|
|
|
|
Tokyo bekana - total |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
1 |
4.33 |
0.36 |
|
outredgeous lettuce |
12/5/23 |
3/7/24 |
1 |
9.4 |
5.67 |
3.73 |
|
|
|
|
|
outredgeous lettuce |
12/5/23 |
3/21/24 |
2 |
6.92 |
3.69 |
3.23 |
|
|
|
|
|
Outredgeous lettuce - total |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
2 |
6.96 |
0.58 |
|
Rosie |
11/7/23 |
2/15/24 |
1 |
7.91 |
5.6 |
2.31 |
|
|
|
|
|
Rosie |
12/5/23 |
2/29/24 |
1 |
12.31 |
5.61 |
6.7 |
perfect but bolting |
|
|
|
|
Rosie |
12/5/23 |
3/7/24 |
na |
0 |
0 |
0 |
didn't harvest - too sparse & bolted |
|
|
|
|
Rosie |
12/5/23 |
3/21/24 |
2 |
9.74 |
3.55 |
6.19 |
|
|
|
|
|
Rosie - total |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
1.5 |
7.6 |
0.63 |
|
Red kingdom |
12/5/23 |
3/7/24 |
1 |
11.65 |
5.67 |
5.98 |
|
|
|
|
|
Red Kingdom |
12/5/23 |
3/21/24 |
2 |
6.43 |
3.69 |
2.74 |
|
|
|
|
|
Red kingdom - total |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
2 |
8.72 |
0.73 |
|
Red cloud |
12/5/23 |
3/7/24 |
1 |
10.94 |
5.67 |
5.27 |
|
|
|
|
|
Red cloud |
12/5/23 |
3/21/24 |
2 |
8.29 |
3.36 |
4.93 |
|
|
|
|
|
Red cloud - total |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
2 |
10.2 |
0.85 |
|
Carlton |
11/7/23 |
2/8/24 |
1 |
7.68 |
5.59 |
2.09 |
|
|
|
|
|
Carlton |
11/7/23 |
2/15/24 |
2 |
7.59 |
5.6 |
1.99 |
|
|
|
|
|
Carlton |
12/5/23 |
2/29/24 |
1 |
15 |
5.6 |
9.4 |
a little cold damage |
|
|
|
|
Carlton |
12/5/23 |
3/7/24 |
2 |
8.36 |
5.67 |
2.69 |
Bolting a little bit |
|
|
|
|
Carlton |
12/5/23 |
3/21/24 |
3 |
14.84 |
3.41 |
11.43 |
bolted |
|
|
|
|
Carlton - total |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
2.5 |
11.04 |
0.92 |
|
Vivid choi |
11/7/23 |
2/8/24 |
1 |
8.62 |
5.6 |
3.02 |
|
|
|
|
|
Vivid choi |
12/5/23 |
2/29/24 |
1 |
16.42 |
5.59 |
10.83 |
most cold damage (but edge bed) |
|
|
|
|
Vivid choi |
12/5/23 |
3/7/24 |
2 |
11.44 |
5.67 |
5.77 |
|
|
|
|
|
Vivid choi |
12/5/23 |
3/21/24 |
3 |
11.67 |
3.64 |
8.03 |
|
|
|
|
|
Vivid choi - total |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
2 |
13.83 |
1.15 |
|
wildfire lettuce mix |
12/5/23 |
3/7/24 |
1 |
14.71 |
5.68 |
9.03 |
nice |
|
|
|
|
wildfire lettuce mix |
12/5/23 |
3/21/24 |
2 |
8.65 |
3.38 |
5.27 |
|
|
|
|
|
Wildfire lettuce mix - total |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
2 |
14.3 |
1.19 |
|
Green salad bowl |
12/5/23 |
3/7/24 |
1 |
14 |
5.69 |
8.31 |
nice |
|
|
|
|
Green salad bowl |
12/5/23 |
3/21/24 |
2 |
10.7 |
3.53 |
7.17 |
|
|
|
|
|
Green salad bowl - total |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
2 |
15.48 |
1.29 |
|
Koji |
11/7/23 |
2/15/24 |
1 |
11.82 |
5.6 |
6.22 |
|
|
|
|
|
Koji |
12/5/23 |
3/7/24 |
1 |
44.97 |
11.34 |
33.63 |
quite bolted - cleared heads |
|
|
|
|
Koji - total |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
1 |
19.93 |
1.66 |
Educational & Outreach Activities
Participation Summary:
I presented on Asian greens and on our project at the virtual portion of the Organic Vegetable Production Conference on 1/25/24. Although we didn't yet have yield results from our project at that point, I discussed about our preliminary impressions of the various varieties we were growing so far, and about the rationale for and setup of our project. I also shared my contact info and was contacted by four growers post-conference who I was able to share final results with. The OVPC conference is attended by about 220 farmers and ag professionals.
I also hosted two Johnny's Seeds representatives for a tour of our winter greens project, and shared final results with them as well.
Learning Outcomes
Our top yielding crops from these trials included three babyleaf brassicas: 'Carlton', 'Koji', and 'Vivid choi', and two lettuces: 'Green salad bowl' and 'Wildfire' lettuce mix. From past experience, we also recommend 'Tokyo bekana' as a high-yielding winter tunnel green, but in this trial, it bolted quickly before yielding much for us with this late planting date, so we only recommend ‘Tokyo bekana’ for September-October seeding, or January-February seeding. One interesting takeaway for us was that even two varieties that seemed very similar in the catalog - 'Koji' and 'Carlton' - can both be well worth planting for the winter high tunnel, because they grow at different speeds and bolt at different times, and were both among the highest yielding crops we grew. 'Koji' grew and bolted the fastest, and because of this fast bolting we only harvested each planting once, but it was still a top yielder, due to its ability to grow and bulk up quickly. 'Carlton,' on the other hand, yielded multiple harvests -- two from the first planting and three from the second, so the staggered harvests were nice for our markets, though the overall yield was a bit lower than 'Koji.' 'Vivid choi' was a strong and steady yielder for us, slower to bolt than 'Koji' or 'Carlton,' and provided a nice color and shape contrast, with long, purplish leaves, in contrast with the rounded, cup-shaped green leaves of 'Koji' and 'Carlton.'
We were also somewhat surprised how well two of our three lettuce varieties did. We thought the babyleaf brassicas would out-yield lettuces in the winter window, but with March harvests from our December planting, 'Green salad bowl' and 'Wildfire mix' were among our top five yielding crops, with strong March yields from our December planting. Unfortunately, our November-planted lettuce was planted in a tunnel with Sclerotinia/lettuce drop pressure, and it succumbed to disease before reaching harvestable size, so we were not able to collect lettuce yield data from this first planting.
NCSARE's support of this project allowed us to spend the necessary time and resources to methodically plant these varieties and track their yields. The data we collected challenged some of our previous casual observations, and will be critically valuable in helping us optimize our winter variety choices going forward, and we believe it will increase winter profitability for us and other growers.
Project Outcomes
This type of project, with so many varieties compared and multiple seeding dates, is a little tricky to implement spatially and logistically, but we think the data is so useful for winter growers for whom every bed foot counts. We'd love to see further evaluations of winter varieties with October or January seeding dates of our top-preforming varieties from this trial alongside a handful of new additions.