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Lamb's Lettuce: Hydroponic Gold, not just for Winter · Hydroponics Daily

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  Hello there and welcome back to
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  Hydroponics Daily, your go-to podcast for everything soilless cultivation.
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  I'm your host, Dr. Russell Sharp, the founder of Utrema Limited,
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  and today I wanted to talk about an often overlooked crop that I think should
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  be given a second look, and it's lamb's lettuce.
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  Now traditionally lamb's lettuce is a crop that is
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  sort of like an ersatz lettuce where you
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  grow it in winter and it's an
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  alternative leafy green for when normally you couldn't get things like lettuce
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  in the supermarkets so before there were mass greenhouses and heated greenhouses
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  people would eat lettuce in the summer and then they'd have to resort to lamb's
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  lettuce in the winter and it's called lamb's lettuce because it's a derogatory term.
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  It's only fit for lambs to eat most of the time. But it's actually a really
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  interesting crop that has a number of interesting features that I think make
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  it a really interesting crop to look again at, especially in hydroponics.
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  So what can we say about.
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  Lamb's lettuce. Well, the tabs I had open have closed.
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  Its scientific name is Valeriana locusta.
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  It's also known as mache, I think in French, is it? Or corn salad.
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  But really, it's interesting because the first reason I think it needs another
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  look is because there are no other crops coming from this family.
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  All the other plants in this family are shrubs or ornamentals,
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  things like honeysuckle it's in the family caprifoliaceae and
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  there are no crops in this in
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  the order of this plant so one above family and
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  so really it's a really interesting crop because if it's the only crop from
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  that family and that order then potentially it's got loads of interesting nutraceutical
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  chemicals in there that you won't find in other crops so potentially it's,
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  it's got a lot of added benefit than you would say, you know,
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  if you grow, if you eat broccoli, well, it's got the same active ingredients
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  and nutraceuticals as you'll find in cabbage, as you'll find in.
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  Um kohlrabi or labrassicas whereas this one
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  is completely on its own in its own order so
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  a bit like pine nuts i always say pine nuts
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  are interesting from that perspective because they're only crop that you actually eat
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  from the gymnosperms for example maybe if you eat yew berries without the seeds
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  in which i often do when i'm going through a church yard church graveyard i'll
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  eat some yew fruit back to back to lamb's lettuce anyway corn salad has a characteristic
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  nutty flavour, dark green colour,
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  soft texture, and it's a salad green, so it can be mixed in there.
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  Includes three times as much vitamin C as lettuce, and beta-carotene,
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  B6, iron, potassium, and so it's a really interesting crop from a nutritional perspective.
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  Now, the second reason I think it should be looked again from hydroponics is
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  because it's not grown commercially, not because people won't eat it,
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  because they will when it's mixed in with a salad and things like that.
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  The reason it's not growing commercially is because it grows very,
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  very close to the ground. And...
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  So you get soil contamination if you're growing it in a field.
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  And the way the leaves grow, the rosettes, you can often get soil growing into
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  the leaves and get contamination there.
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  So not only does it look bad if you've got soil in your salad and it's difficult
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  to wash, there's a potential for contamination.
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  A very, very low-lying rosette close to the soil is potential for all sorts
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  of microbial and other sorts of contamination.
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  Now, if you're growing hydroponically, then you
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  can remove this and you could potentially get really good results
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  it's a very very fast growing plant in hydroponics potentially
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  and like a leafy green there's no need to you don't have to resort
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  to flowers and and things like that it's not a commodity
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  crop so you're not competing on really small margins like
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  you would with lettuce and tomatoes and cucumbers
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  so you can charge a premium for an unusual crop
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  because it's not a commodity the other
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  and then the third reason i think it should be looked again at hydroponic
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  growers is that it's a crop as i said it's a winter alternative
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  to lettuce so it will thrive in cold conditions
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  so if you've got an unheated greenhouse an unheated
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  grow room somewhere where you're struggling to heat it to the temperatures required
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  for tomatoes cucumbers things like that if you're in a northern latitude or
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  very high altitude and you're struggling to get heat in there we said that heat
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  is one of the major contributing costs for hydroponics and greenhouses,
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  potentially lamb's lettuce is a good alternative to look at.
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  So the third reason I think that lamb's lettuce is a good one to look at.
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  Another good reason is that although it's a highly unusual crop, it has been eaten since.
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  Well at least the 16th century here in the UK and so it's not considered a novel
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  crop so you don't need to worry about falling foul of European novel food regulations.
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  So there's another good reason to try out lamb's lettuce.
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  Now what are the downsides of growing lamb's lettuce? The nutrition won't have
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  been optimized for it because it's completely unrelated to all of the leafy
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  green crops so you would have to spend some time looking at the best nutrition,
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  best grow conditions but there's a some intellectual
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  property you can own and have a moat around your your
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  business that other people can't compete easily with it's
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  susceptible to some fungal issues in humid conditions so
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  downy mildew botrytis can be a problem but you
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  know name me a crop where that isn't the case for
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  leafy green obviously a limited consumer demand
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  if it's niche and not many people are going to be go oh
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  yeah lamb's lettuce i love that it might be an acquired taste and
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  nutty tastes are often acquired not one
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  for if you're growing in really warm conditions and if
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  you're not growing it right then it could be very slow growing and as
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  we said it's it's it's sensitive to contamination of the leaves if you can't
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  control leaf splash and splashing of liquids around your grow room then it might
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  be good for you it's sensitive to leaf damage so you when you break the leaves
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  they will reduce the shelf life considerably.
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  And so mechanical harvesting it, could you automate harvesting or is it too difficult?
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  Does it require manual harvesting because it's such a delicate crop?
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  And how long is the shelf life? Potentially a low shelf life.
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  But if you're growing it for use in a restaurant or something else,
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  then you're not going to be selling lamb's lettuce in a.
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  In the supermarket are you anytime soon a number of studies have been done looking
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  at hydroponic cultivation dwc systems have been used successfully it responds
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  well to silicon enrichment as well so,
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  that's good to know what the optimum silicon concentration
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  is and certainly hydroponic growing
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  lamb's lettuce had a much longer shelf life than those in
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  soil can grow conditions some
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  studies have looked at it for biofortification with
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  selenium a big one for lambs themselves to prevent
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  them getting what's the big disease that selenium deficiency
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  causes in sheep is it dropsy or have I gone mad let me google that yep I have
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  gone mad it's white muscle disease that's what it causes so potential for biofortification
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  there what else has lambsless been used for it's been looked at in hydroponics
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  for in the low countries so Belgium Holland.
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  And there there is sort of you know there's history of growing alternative leafy
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  veggies such as what is it the.
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  What's chicory called endive you know the blanched
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  endive so it has had some good.
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  Research but mainly in dwc so that's.
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  More of an issue more of a wide scale system in
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  north america in america whereas in
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  the uk in the uk europe potential can we
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  grow it with nft which is more industrial over here
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  so some unanswered questions when it comes
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  to lamb's lettuce or as it's known by its scientific name
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  valeriana locusta it's
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  a pretty looking plant looks a lot like watercress so you could
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  if you were struggling to get watercress which again is a nutty
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  type of plant if you're struggling to grow watercress if there's a
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  shortage of watercress in your area
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  then i think lamb's lettuce would be a good alternative it
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  is prone to bolting in warm temperatures as well so just bear
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  that in mind but yeah lamb's lettuce a good one to look
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  at for your hydroponic setup if you're starting up if you
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  very much for listening until tomorrow that's been hydroponics daily goodbye.