Dutch Crop tour onions - week 20
Sometimes spicy hail damage in onions, can shoot recover?
Last week's hailstorms caused damage to seed onions in various regions. Especially the young shoots have suffered. But a good recovery is possible.
Hail damage can be found on several plots. This usually concerns minor hail damage, where the flag leaf is damaged or has been hit, causing it to lie against the surface. But locally there are also plots where the damage is enormous, such as on some plots in Groningen and Drenthe.
Bruised and flattened
Arjan Bos, Crop Specialist at Hazera, sees hail damage in onions in various regions: 'I regularly come across plots with minor hail damage. You can see from the plants that they are partly bent and they are lying against the plain.' That is the image many onion growers have on their fields. You can also see sporadically bent plants on the Gewastour plots, such as on the plot in Wezup (Drenthe) and Eenrum (Groningen).
Onions can recover well
When an onion has been hailed, it is not immediately written off. An onion is quite resilient and, according to Bos, can recover well, despite the blow. "As long as the plant can do photosynthesis, there is not much to worry about. If the onion that has been chopped off is still green and the plant has 3 carrots, it always goes well. Those are the conditions," says Bos.
The most important thing is that the plant is not completely constricted, he continues. "By that I mean that the plant lies against the ground and that it turns brown or black in a certain place, so that photosynthesis can no longer take place. If that is the case, then the plant is finished."
Jesse Torringa
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