News and Stories

Markon First Crop Premium Iceberg and Romaine Lettuces are limited; Markon Best Available is being substituted as needed.

California’s Salinas Valley has experienced several consecutive warm, humid days/nights. Most crops are holding up well, but some varieties of romaine have been developing fringe burn, internal burn, and mildew pressure (see photos).

Iceberg quality is very good, but a current gap in supply is causing a sharp decline in case weights. Above-normal demand for iceberg over the last two to three weeks has caused many commodity growers and salad processors to harvest younger fields. The processors in particular are eating through fields more rapidly because they must harvest more heads than normal to meet target bin weights.

Throughout the industry, case weights for 24-count liner lettuce have dropped from 44- to 50-pounds last week to as low as 34- to 42-pounds at the tail end of this week. Growers expect to see below-normal weights through most of next week before head density starts slowly increasing.

Please contact your Markon customer service representative for more information.

John Galvez

Quality Assurance

markon.com

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