We are an organic commercial market garden. This winter we switched to no-dig & are very happy with the results so far. One issue we have involves our butterhead lettuce, from which we hand-pick throughout the winter. As you can see from the picture the leaves on some of the heads have been quite deformed and have remained like this since October. Over the winter we have seen more and more of the plants looking like this. It has been seen on some other varities of lettuce but much moreso wiht the butterhead (brighton).
We have had issues with keeping the beds wet enough, so this is one thought. another is that the compost we added to the surface of the bed is pH8.3. We have high indices in our soil and high potassium in particular so could this be magnesium lock-up.
Please take a look at the picture and let me know what you think.
Thanks and Regards
Janet
They look fine just like winter lettuces outside all look like this and it is that they don’t really grow in December and January because of lack of light. I don’t think we have a magnesium deficiency. We have a small commercial organic market garden and grow in the polytunnel in the winter it seems they like that environment better although they don’t grow after mid November as I have said they are growing now
Thanks for your response. I should have said that these lettuces are indeed under cover in a polytunnel.
If you look closely at the leaves in the pic you will see they look dried out, almost crispy. In fact its hard to tell from the image but its obvious when you see them up close and touch them.
I checked the roots on these lettuce heads and they are fine and I thought that maybe we growth picked up as it has that they would grow out of it but they haven’t.
