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Crop tour Onions - week 18

Onion growers are breaking rind this season as a precaution

2 May 2023 - Robert Reijerse

In recent years, crust formation has been a considerable spoilsport in the emergence. Growers with onions and beets in the ground are not without worries this year either. They therefore want to be one step ahead of the crust formation and arm themselves with the weed dough. 

On various plots participating in the Boerenbusiness Crop tour in the south and center of the country broke the top layer last weekend to prevent crusting. Growers did this when the soil was barely gray and really hard and the onions had not yet touched the top layer. With this, growers seem to have learned from previous years and are already breaking the rind as a precaution. You are often too late and you cause damage as soon as the first onions are flagged, according to several growers. With the rising temperature, this also causes more air and warming in the soil.

Break before emergence
Klaasjan Boer in Kortgene (ZL) saw crust formation on a plot of onions. For this he used a weed dough to break the crust. "It went fantastic, breaking the crust with the weed dough. It had just rained a millimeter during the night, so the ground was black in the morning. The onions were still nicely deep underground, so I didn't damage my onions. I expect the onions to be at the top within a week due to the rising temperatures."

Peter Holster from Marknesse (Fl) and Jacky Dieleman from Phillipine can also be found on the Zeeland clay with a weeding soil on their Gewastour plot. 

'Difficult to say whether damage has been driven'
David de Wit has also made the choice to break the crust on his plot with the weed dough. After a few years in which crust formation was a serious problem for them, De Wit wants to get ahead of that misery this year. "We started weeding to break the first crust. In the last five years we had to irrigate the onions three times. I had seen some good results with the weeding on the test fields in Lelystad, so that's why we tried it."

De Wit does find it difficult to say whether damage has been caused with the weeder, but it is probably not too bad at this stage. "We harrowed when the crust was still very soft so that you could match it with minimal aggressiveness. We drove on the lightest setting at a speed of only 1.5 km/h. As it seems now I am satisfied with the result, there is a nice loose layer on top. I have the impression that the heat is now also coming deeper a bit sooner, which hopefully will improve the emergence. I don't know whether it was good in the end. Also because they will give up rain by the end of this week. Then they will be probably not over yet. Also it is always difficult to find the seed at this stage."

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