From the Fields: Alex Jack, ​​​​​​​Imperial County vegetable farmer

By Alex Jack
Imperial County vegetable farmer

We grow lettuce and romaine, mostly Little Gems, which are baby romaine, and Tuscan lettuces. The front end of our season starts around Sept. 10. We got a lot of rain, and while it’s not unusual to get one big storm and then dry out, this year it was rain after rain. Many growers had periods when they couldn’t plant, which made it very difficult. Our ranch is about 95% drip irrigated, which allowed us to control water precisely. Even with excessive rain, we could add just enough moisture to help with germination, and we’ve had extremely good results so far.

We put in some speculative lettuce and romaine on the front end because of all the rain we had in August and September, and we did very well with that. With all the drip irrigation we have, even with the excessive rain, we were able to apply just minute amounts of water to keep the seed germinated and keep it going. We had very good yields on the front end when prices were very good, so we’re off to a strong start with good yields and a really good price.

It’s been warm for a while, so everything is growing fast. We thought we might bunch up a bit on our ranch, but because other growers were having trouble planting due to the rain, the company I grow for, Church Brothers, was able to bring in equipment and move a lot of volume. It’s been a very good year for us.

The rain was a major challenge. We planted some fields that were a little wet, knowing that if we could get them in, we had a good shot at a strong market. We were encouraged to keep planting if we had ground available, so we did. On the front end, we planted about 400 acres during that tough window, roughly 140 more acres than we normally would. With the higher market, it worked out very well.