Vegetable Market by Lorraine B

Home , Kohlrabi, Rapini

Yuma County: Keeping Up With the Winter Vegatable Market

Item Type Article

Authors Kingdon, Lorraine B.

Journal Arizona Land and People

Download date 30/09/2021 15:48:22

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Ar J - JOE CHIT WOOD YuaCounty Keeping Up With the Winter Vegetable Market By Lorraine B. Kingdon

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Take a close look at the vegetables are small plantings of daikon radishes, proximately one -third of the county's growing in Yuma County this year. radicio, rapini and purple and green commercial vegetable growers added Notice any differences? kohlrabi. new crops. Forward -looking Yuma vegetable Grower Bob Meiser sums up the Marvin Butler points to another growers have made a fast change in reason for growing the new crops in reason for the large increase in acreage response to a new market that opened three words, "Demand is up." He be- of ``minor" vegetable crops. The UA up a couple of years ago. lieves buyers realized that Yuma Yuma County agricultural agent says So, you'll see more acres of leaf County growers could supply top - buyers now want mixed loads. Super- lettuce -green and red -Romaine, quality vegetables for the winter market managers prefer to purchase Boston lettuce, Bok Choy, escarole and market. one or two cartons of radishes, for ex- Napa (Chinese cabbage). Tucked here The response was fast. Within a ample, along with a larger amount of and there among larger fields of lettuce year after the market developed, ap- head lettuce.

Winter 1987 17 Growers Respond to Winter Market -.11111CamIlif

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ICEBERG ROMAINE CAULIFLOWER BOSTON BROCCOLI LEAF LETTUCE LETTUCE LETTUCE LETTUCE

18 Arizona Land & People Head or iceberg lettuce is still the many growers jumping on the same largest vegetable crop in the area, bandwagon at the same time. Meiser Butler says. In 1986, 21,300 acres were believes that already may have hap- planted by October 15, an increase of pened to the boom in minor vegetables 20 percent from the previous year. over the past three or four years. He Broccoli is now planted on 1,500 thinks next year's Napa acreage may acres, a 117 percent increase, while go down, for example, because the 4,500 acres of cauliflower represents a supply has outstripped demand. 25 percent increase. The market price to the grower Comparing the acres of minor veg- can change from one day to the next. In etables planted by October 15 to plant- mid January, for example, cool, windy ings of a year earlier, 550 acres of leaf weather hit Yuma and the price of lettuce represents an 85 percent in- Napa went up because less was being crease. Romaine acreage is up 64 per- picked. As Meiser explained it, "The cent to 350 acres and Boston lettuce demand was steady, but the supply now is planted on 120 acres, an in- went down." crease of 83 percent. Vegetables picked today in Yuma Acreages of Bok Choy, escarole could be on supermarket produce and Napa also have gone up dramat- counters in Phoenix tomorrow, or they ically although the size of the plantings could be in New York City three days in each case is below 100 acres. And for later. Yuma produce does go all the way the first time in the Yuma area, growers to the East Coast, Meiser says. are raising such exotics as daikon The vegetables are all hand -har- radishes, radicio, rapini and kohlrabi. vested, Butler says. Often custom har- Growers have other problems to vest crews specialize in one of two contend with in addition to the market, particular vegetables, such as Napa says Butler. It's more difficult to grow and Bok Choy. Watch them; it's ob- and harvest small acreages of several vious, they know their job. crops rather than an entire field of one Cutters with long, sharp knives vegetable. walk the rows, cutting each head just Most minor crops lack registered above the ground, quickly removing herbicides to control weeds; the vege- yellowed base -leaves and putting the tables must be weeded entirely by heads upside down in a row. hand or by mechanical means. Regis- They're followed closely by men tered pesticides for insect control are who pack the Napa into boxes, 12 few, yet minor vegetables suffer from heads to a box. Others bring boxes most of the same pests as head lettuce. from the trailer -truck, shake them Predicting the vegetable market open and put them into just the right always has been a risky business; even position to be filled. the most expert crystal ball can fail Finally, the boxes are stapled shut three years out of five, sometimes even and loaded onto a truck and taken to a oftener, says Dr. Norman Oebker, UA brief cold storage before being shipped Extension vegetables specialist. Per- to supermarkets all over the country. haps that's how growers learn to jump As many as 300 trucks per day leave quickly when a new market trend Yuma during the winter vegetable har- seems to show up. vest, perhaps...taking Boston lettuce to There's always a danger of too Boston. PHOTOS BY LYNN KETCHUM

(left) In many cases, plantings of minor vegetables in Yuma County soared in 1986.

Winter 1987 19