Crop tour onions - week 15
Do seed onions come up or is the crust too strong?
The first shoots of the yellow onions appear above the ground, see the growers who participate in the Boerenbusiness Crop tour. These plots were sown before the last rainy period. In other plots, emergence is still pending and a higher temperature is important. However, encrustation is quite an obstacle.
Due to the dry weather in March, many growers have already removed the seeder from the shed and thus brought the spring forward. At the beginning of April, the expected rain finally came and there was even a layer of snow over the plots, which amounted to a considerable amount of precipitation in some areas. This load of rainwater followed by the current spring brought a crust on the plots in many areas. Congestion also plays a part after the heavy rainfall.
Cold ground in West Friesland
The sowing onions at Reinder Hogenhout in Kimswerd (Fr) are still pending. The crop tour plot that was sown on March 26 lacks a higher temperature. The ground is too cold and there is no greenery above the ground. He expects the onions to be on the top by the end of the week, depending on the weather. Hogenhout does note that crusting is forming on his plot. He considers breaking the crust to tackle the hurdle for the onions.
Arjen Jakobs from Wezup (Dr) saw the cold weather of the past weeks coming and therefore decided to keep his onion seed in the bag. Now that the weather is starting to dry up and the ground is almost accessible, he wants to prepare the land and start sowing the onions early next week.
Seed onions break through
In Oeffelt (NB) Geert Jilissen can count the rows of onions. He sown his onions on March 14 and was able to take the photo below 3,5 weeks later on Friday April 8. Because Jilissen was afraid that the primed seed would run dry, his reel provided artificial rain of 15 millimeters a week after sowing. Due to its light soil, crust formation played no role.
At the crop tour plot of Klaasjan Boer in Kortgene (Z), the seed onions are also emerging. These were sown on March 17 in the Zeeland soil. The difference with the picture below is 24 days. Last weekend he treated his plot with the Wing P soil herbicide. The sowing conditions were fine, but it started to dry quickly. As a result, the seed dried up in some places and they started to germinate later. All onions have now germinated and Boer expects a small two-way effect due to the dry period. His expectation is that this will no longer be visible in the course of the season.
Robin Winter
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