Growing Substrates for Organic Lettuce Production in Kuwait

Abstract: The demands for organically produced vegetable are increasing all over the world including Kuwait. Therefore, efforts are being made to develop an appropriate package of practices for organic greenhouse vegetable production under Kuwait's harsh climatic conditions. Several experiments were conducted to select suitable growing substrate for production of organic leafy vegetables like Iceberg lettuce and red oak leaf lettuce. Ready to use commercial substrates were compared with locally formulated growing based on vegetative growth parameters like height, number of leaves and chlorophyll index. The results showed that plants grown in locally formulated growing substrates were similar to those grown in ready-to-use commercial substrates. The local medium can be recommended as an alternative to expensive commercial substrates as it reduced the cost significantly; however further improvements in its composition is required to ensure greater productivity.