Introduction

Most microgreen farmers operate under similar conditions - indoors and climate-controlled. Despite having similar setups, everybody has their method for growing each variety. I’ll explain how I grow beet microgreens at my company, Piedmont Microgreens (PMG). We grow 400+ trays per week (TPW) at PMG, and 10% of those are beet. Here are the farm's parameters and the conditions for growing our microgreens. Yes, the relative humidity (RH) is high. I want the RH to be between 45-55%, but we’re working on it. Regardless, our crops grow well and we don’t have any issues with disease. We fertilize all crops with one dosing of dilute Ocean Solution. We dilute one ounce of Ocean Solution to a gallon of water. Every tray gets fertilized first thing out of germination. The rest of their life they get regular city water.

Avg. Farm Temperature	75°F/24°C
Avg. Farm Humidity (RH)	65-72%
Lights On	16 Hours
Lights Off	8 Hours
Shelf Spacing	10”
Lighting	2*T5 LEDs 22W/Shelf
Soil	Promix BX
Trays	1020 Shallow
Water	Municipal, Bottom Watering
Fertilizer	Ocean Solution

Growing Beet Microgreens

Beet is one of the most challenging varieties, even among experienced growers. For the longest time, I thought there was no other option but to deliberately overplant beet, knowing a good portion would die off. One day we introduced a new lot of beet seed into production, and the results were amazing. We thought we changed something about the growing process, like airflow or temperature, but that wasn’t it. It turns out we’d been buying terrible seed batches for years. Like sunflower and cilantro seeds, there are now only a few places I trust to get my beet seed. We currently get beet exclusively from Mumm’s Seeds in Canada. More specifically, we get Ruby Beet. Bull’s Blood Beet would be ideal, and it’s the preferred variety by chefs, but Mumm’s is often out of stock. We’ve grown Ruby Beet for months. None of our clients have mentioned a distaste for it, despite it not being as rich and maroon in color as Bull’s Blood. As with cilantro, beet is a compound seed. Compound seeds have more than one embryo, which means multiple microgreens emerge from a single seed.

When planting beet, like any other crop, start with a layer of tamped soil in a 1020 tray. Evenly sprinkle your 40g of seed across the tray. Use a watering wand to hydrate the seed and soil. Top dress the seeds with a thin layer of soil. Spread the soil around with your hands until the seeds are covered. Lightly water the top layer of soil. Place a bottom tray under each planted tray. Stack your trays no taller than five to a stack. Place the stack on your germination rack, and then place a 10 to 15# paver on top. Leave the beet in germination for five days. There’s truly nothing special about how we grow beet at PMG. It’s entirely up to finding quality seeds.

One thing to note about beet, as well as chard varieties, is that their seed hulls are very strong. Strong enough to break a tooth. If you get a chance, take a single beet seed and carefully, lightly bite down on it with your molars. You’ll see how rock-hard they can be, and you’ll understand what I’m going to say next. We want to prevent any unsuspecting customer from enjoying a meal, only to bite down on a beet seed. At worst, they damage their teeth. At best, they’re unpleasantly surprised. When we harvest our beet microgreens, we must remove any beet hulls that stay attached after germination. We pick them out individually as we pack containers. Top-dressing the seeds during planting will go a long way to improving seed shedding during germination, but it’s not perfect.

Product Size	Container Size	Price	Client Type
2 oz.	24 oz.	$16.00	Restaurants
8 oz.	64 oz.	$32.00	Distributors

Preferred Supplier	Mumm’s Seeds
Preferred Variety	Ruby Beet (or Bull’s Blood)
Sow Density	40g/Tray
Est. Seed Cost/Tray	$3.30 (Buying 22#s of Seed)
Est. Gross Margin/Tray	76% (Restaurants)
Popularity Level	8/10 (Top 5)
Difficulty of Growing	Advanced