Reduced Daily Light Integral at the End of Production Can Delay Tipburn Incidence with a Yield Penalty in Indoor Lettuce Production

Abstract

Indoor vertical farms that grow lettuce commonly encounter tipburn, which is an environmental disorder caused by calcium (Ca) deficiency during the late head-forming stages of lettuce. Characterized by marginal leaf necrosis of young expanding leaves, tipburn reduces marketable yield because of the appearance of these necrotic lesions. Lowering the daily light integral (DLI) to slow the plant growth rate has been a widely practiced approach to avoid tipburn in lettuce, but it largely reduces the final yield. We assessed the effect of lowering the DLI only during the end of production, which is a critical time because it is when tipburn is typically observed. Lettuce plants of tipburn-sensitive cultivars Klee and Rex were grown under a tipburn-inducing condition in growth chambers. Sixteen days after transplanting, the DLI was varied to 100% (L100), 85% (L85), 70% (L70), or 55% (L55) of the original 17.4 mol⋅m−2⋅d−1 to grow the final 12 d. At harvest, tipburn severity was reduced by lowering the DLI, but the magnitude of reduction was cultivar-specific. For ‘Klee’, the lowest tipburn severity was found at L55 (8% ± 2.1% of leaves), but the severity was similar for all other DLI levels (33% ± 3.5% of leaves). For ‘Rex’, tipburn severity was highest in the control (L100; 14% ± 2.8% of leaves) but similar for all other DLI levels (2% ± 0.9% of leaves). Reducing the end-of-production DLI to 55% resulted in a linear decrease in yield by up to 22% and 26% for ‘Klee’ and ‘Rex’, respectively. When the increase in marketable yields and decrease in the electricity cost were considered, decreasing the end-of-production DLI yielded a profitable contribution only for ‘Klee’ (L55). For moderately tipburn-sensitive ‘Rex’, revenue losses attributable to the yield decrease were too large to justify this approach of end-of-production reduced DLI.