Researchers near completion of 3-year study

From Rio Grande Digital.com - by Jay Rodman - Late October and mid-November might seem late to be planting salad greens in New Mexico, but a group of New Mexico State University faculty members, students and farm crew were not deterred by the calendar. For the third year in a row, they were starting rows of Trout’s Back lettuce and Bloomsdale spinach from seed in a dozen hoop houses, also known as passive-solar high tunnels. Six of the structures are located at NMSU’s Leyendecker Plant Science Research Center south of Las Cruces and the other six are at NMSU’s Sustainable Agriculture Science Center at Alcalde, north of Santa Fe. When the last of this crop is harvested in late winter or early spring, it will provide the final data in a three-year study of the viability of these low-budget greenhouses for New Mexico small producers who want to grow vegetables in the winter. This project, titled “Winter Production of Leafy Greens in the Southwestern U.S.A. Using High Tunnels,” actually involves 18 hoop houses – in addition to the ones at the two agricultural science centers, there is one at each of six cooperator sites in New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado. Read more

Researchers near completion of 3-year study