How does the control of weeds in onions work?

The persistent drought is slowly but surely making itself felt on many onion plots. An advantage of the radiant weather, however, is that herbicides are sprayed under good conditions, with a view to precipitation this week. But is that necessary or are the weeds themselves visibly affected by the drought?

Now that the onions are on top of the plots at all onion growers, they know how many plants per hectare they have to make do this season. This is not easy everywhere, while even in the battle with weeds, some plants sometimes disappear. In addition, onion growers who participate in the Boerenbusiness Dutch Crop tour indicates that some weeds are difficult to suppress.

Melden take the upper hand
Despite the fact that plots are not yet overgrown with weeds, that can change quickly. Especially when we will soon have to deal with precipitation. Mark Ermers, crop advisor at Bayer Crop Science, says it will be 'a big challenge and very difficult' to suppress the weeds this season: "As soil herbicides, we only have to do it in onions with Stomp, Wing P, Boxer and AZ 500. Due to the drought, we have less trouble with Common ragwort this year and reported the predominance."

Dirk Binnema from Eenrum (Gr) irrigated his crop tour plot on Friday 13 May with 7 millimeters with an irrigation boom. Because the groundwater there is too salty, the arable farmer uses surface water. A day later Binnema has hoeed against weeds and more air can get into the soil.

Irrigation boom of Binnema (Eenrum).

After watering, hoeing could be done on the plot.

Good onion stand in Drenthe
Arjen Jakobs from Wezup (Dr) has counted his onion plants and calculated that he has around 850.000 plants per hectare. Jacobs is satisfied with that. This year the grower has more onions than last year, when he had to make do with 400.000 to 500.000 plants per hectare. Every now and then he sees a single onion sticking up, but Jacobs does not take this into account when spraying. "It is worth more to me to keep a clean field than the 1% more onions."

Robin Winter

Intern at the Boerenbusiness Dutch Crop tour

r.dewinter@boerenbusiness. Nl

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