Dutch Crop tour onions - Week 12
Onion seed dry in the ground, now time for step 2
Many onion growers have seen their chance because of the exceptionally nice weather in this month of March, which means that the seed onions on many farms were sown in good conditions. Now it's time for the second step: rain, reels or drip irrigation. Although rain (and snow) seems to be on the way for the next few days.
Six of the eight onion growers participating in the Boerenbusiness Croptours have already sown the field of yellow onions that will be followed this year. The hectares flew in, but there is no question of a great start. It had to be irrigated before emergence. This is done not only full-field with a cannon, but also drip irrigation.
Geert Jillisen couldn't wait for the rain and has been running the reel for the first few hours of the season. The Gewastour plot that was sown on March 14 was provided with 24 mm last Thursday (March 15). Jilissen expects them to surface within a week. Another onion plot of his is a lot heavier. There he waits a while before sowing.
The plot has also been sown in Ysselsteyn (L) and Martijn Derikx works with a different way of supplying moisture to the seed onions: drip irrigation. Due to the drought, he therefore switched on the system on the crop tour plot at the beginning of this week. On other onion plots, Derikx does not use drip irrigation, because then the investment becomes too high. The other plots are waiting for precipitation.
Reinder Hogenhout has prepared and sown his crop tour plot on Saturday 26 March. "Moisture is not a problem here with this commissioned soil, I just hope it will get a bit warmer in the soil because the temperature is still too low". Hogenhout has already completed the first spraying. On Monday 29 March, he immediately sprayed soil herbicides and spread compost to prevent waterlogging and crusting.
March unbelievably dry
The contrast is great compared to last season around this period. In March 2021, 44 millimeters fell on average in the Netherlands, while this year in several areas there was not even a millimeter of precipitation. The maximum rain gauge rose to 15 millimeters this month. The top layer is therefore dry in several areas, but growers notice with the soil preparation that there is still sufficient moisture present underneath.
Robin Winter
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