Most lettuce supplies in the Arizona/California desert growing region continue to be below Markon First Crop (MFC) weight specifications. Some 24-count liner lettuce fields remain 6 to 12 pounds below MFC minimum requirements. Cold weather and extremely strong demand have prevented fields from reaching ideal maturity.

Temperatures will be 5°-8° below normal this week with a possibility of lettuce ice on Thursday, December 8 through Saturday, December 10, which will keep case weights below normal through the rest of the month. Markon inspectors have started seeing more fields that meet MFC romaine and green leaf weight specs and expect to start seeing sporadic fields that meet MFC specs for liner lettuce soon.

Most suppliers don’t expect to see normal maturity and case weights consistently until the second week of January, depending on how much cold weather is recorded.

Please contact your Markon customer service representative for more information.

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