Cultivation

Several types of lettuce including butterhead, iceberg and cos lettuces belong to the Lactuca sativa. This type of lettuce grows worldwide in regions with moderate climate and need a lot of water and light. The main producing areas in the EU are in Spain, Italy and France; worldwide the main lettuce producers are China and the USA.

Endive, lamb's lettuce, chicory and radicchio belong to other types of lettuce.

Utilisation

Lettuce is mainly consumed raw.

Gene technology: aims of research and development

Agronomic traits

Weed control

• Herbicide tolerance

Resistance to pathogens

• Fungal resistance

• Virus resistance
  
  

• Bacterial resistance

Resistance to pests

• Insect resistance

Plant development

• The formation of certain substances that trigger the ageing process is suppressed to prevent the lettuce turning brown.

• modified leaf form

• Increased yields

• male sterility

Product traits

Modified composition of components

• Reduction of nitrate levels

Enrichment with health-promoting ingredients such as

• Iron

Renewable primary products

Production of active pharmaceutical agents

• Molecular pharming: utilisation of gene-modified lettuce plants as a system to produce medicinal drug ingredients such as insulin; until now this has only been for experimental research.

Field trials with GM lettuce