Precipitation helps growers, but rain does not fall everywhere

After a dry period, some rain has finally fallen in the Netherlands, to the relief of many onion growers. The first millimeters fell last Sunday and since then, many places have had a nice shower. However, not every region is able to profit from the precipitation.

For most growers, the precipitation came just in time. In many parts of the country, it had remained virtually dry since mid-March, with some places going more than three weeks without any significant precipitation. The lack of moisture was becoming increasingly noticeable, especially on lighter soils. This week's rain of between 0 and 15 millimeters brought relief.

To irrigate or not?
Some growers decided not to wait. Jan Berend Biesheuvel from Zeewolde (Flevoland) continued to irrigate his plot last week. With the rain that has now fallen, a total of about 10 millimeters, his crop is looking good. The first onions are also up in other places in the country. At Arjan Jacobs from Wezup (Drenthe) they are coming up nicely. "It is beautiful to see. The rain really helped," he says. 

weed control
In Kimswerd (Friesland), Reinder Hogenhout also sees his onions emerge, and that has happened quickly. On Monday, he started with weeding on the plot, which went well. He chose to harrow now to break the germinating threads of the weeds under the ground, so that they can die. You can't kill the weeds mentioned above with harrowing. After the precipitation on Sunday, it remained dry for about a day and a half, and that seemed like a good time to get started. If the weather is nice next week, he probably wants to harrow again. His aim is to be able to harrow once a week.
Jacobs has now completed his third round of spraying in the yellow onions. In Zeeuws-Vlaanderen, Jacky Dieleman from Philippine is busy replenishing Stomp and AZ. He also got a nice shower, but he says he didn't win the main prize with 4 millimeters over the entire day.

At Peter Holster (Flevoland) the onions are also coming up quickly. However, the situation is not equally rosy everywhere. At Hubert Linders from Nederweert (Limburg) only 1 millimeter of rain fell. In parts of Zeeland there has also been little to no rain, which is difficult especially for farmers who cannot irrigate. "The wheat is even suffering from it", says KlaasJan Boer from Kortgene (Zeeland). Jacky Dieleman says: "The differences are very big. Here, plots of wheat are already clearly visible: old ditches and drainage, you can see all kinds of things because of the drought." 

Irrigation at Jan Berend Biesheuvel Onions come up at Arjan Jacobs Onions from Reinder Hogenhout are coming up. Reinder Hogenhout's onions after weeding Jacky Dieleman spraying Peter Holster's onions also come up

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