USA

Yara offers the most comprehensive range of crop nutrient products in the industry

Lettuce and Celery

Lettuce and celery are cool-weather crops that require close management of nitrogen forms, rate and timing.

Nitrate nitrogen's many advantages over ammonium nitrogen bear on each of these critical factors. YaraLiva™ products are predictable, even when the weather is not.

  • Fast response
  • Early maturity
  • Non acid
  • Non volatile
  • Available calcium
  • Precise timing
  • Controlled growth
  • Water soluble

Factors that affect yield and quality

In the cultivation of high quality lettuce and celery, the grower must consider the unique growth/production characteristics of these crops:

  • Both are relatively cool-season crops

  • Both are sensitive to low pH

  • Both have a small root mass

  • Lettuce produces more than 70% and celery more than 50% of its weight
    in the last 21 days of growth

  • The highest demand for nitrogen occurs in the last three to four weeks

  • "Tipburn" of lettuce and "blackheart" of celery are both caused by
    calcium deficiency in the young leaves

  • Calcium deficiency is increased by high nitrogen, high light, heat and
    rapid growth

YaraLiva™ Program Suggestions

The small root system of lettuce and celery and the high demand for nutrients in the last three to four weeks of crop growth means the grower must maintain high fertility in the plant bed. Yara's calcium nitrate fertilizers offer lettuce and celery growers an excellent combination of nitrate in an available water-soluble form.

Application timing

With soil test results and crop history as a guide, the grower can provide the phosphate and potash at or prior to planting. Nitrogen, however, is in highest demand by lettuce and celery during the last quarter of the season. To get the crop established and growing, approximately one quarter of the total nitrogen demand can be supplied pre-plant with the P and K. Supplemental nitrogen is then applied as solution via irrigation.

Many growers split-apply the rate with the first application at thinning and the second four to six weeks before harvest. Such a program takes advantage of the higher uptake of nitrate than ammonium at the low temperatures during the latter part of the season. YaraLiva™ gives the grower control. He can supply the nitrate nitrogen and water-soluble calcium the crop needs in the amounts required to produce the desired yield and quality without lowering the soil pH.

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