Many of today’s consumers are striving to eat healthier by adding more fruits and vegetables to their diets. Salads are a popular way to do this, and salads usually involve lettuce as the foundation.
In fact, Americans are producing and eating a lot of lettuce; particularly romaine, leaf, and iceberg types. Since 1992, annual production of romaine lettuce has increased from 5.6 million pounds per year to 26.5 million pounds. Leaf lettuce production increased less spectacularly, from 8.2 million pounds to 12.1 million during the same time period. Iceberg yield nearly doubled from 28.9 million pounds in 1950 to 53.2 million pounds in 2012, and peaked at 70.8 million pounds in 1992.
Lettuce production in the United States is concentrated mostly in California and Arizona, where it is grown year-round. As a matter of fact, Salinas, California, is called “The salad bowl of the nation.”
Plant geneticists Ivan Simko, Ryan Hayes, and Beiquan Mou and plant pathologist Carolee T. Bull, all in the Agricultural Research Service’s Crop Improvement and Protection Research Unit in Salinas, developed and tested the performance and resistance in field, greenhouse, and laboratory experiments of 16 new lettuce breeding lines: 6 icebergs, 4 romaines, and 6 leaf lettuces. They collaborated with Yaguang (Sunny) Luo, a food technologist at the ARS Food Quality Laboratory in Beltsville, Maryland, for testing of the lines, including postharvest evaluations of the lettuce quality; size and shape of the heads; size, shape, and texture of leaves; and core length.
To read the rest of the story, please go to: USDA's Agricultural Research Magazine
