Crop tour Arjan Jacobs
'See how many onions I sell in advance per year'
The quotations for yellow onions are under pressure and an expansion of the onion area is expected for the current growing year of 2024. Arable farmer Arjen Jakobs, participant in the Boerenbusiness Crop tour, take it for granted. He sticks to his strategy and continues to grow both yellow and red onions. "If you start something, you have to keep doing it and not grow after the market." Jakobs uses a high sowing density in cultivation, because the number of plants can be disappointing after the early growth stage in extreme conditions.
The 2024 growing season will follow Boerenbusiness Crop tour another ten plots with yellow onions. From sowing to harvest, the participating arable farmers take us through the cultivation and the decisions they make during the growing season. With this series of interviews we get to know the grower and the company, his vision on cultivation and certain strategies. In the first interview of this season, it is an acquaintance who has been participating in the Crop Tour for several years: Arjen Jakobs from Wezup in Drenthe.
In the Wezup area, Jakobs grows these crops on approximately 140 hectares: 10 hectares of barley, 35 hectares of onions, 65 hectares of starch and ware potatoes and finally about 27 hectares of sugar beets. The soil type is mainly sand, but also partly peat. He mainly does the work himself, but has extra manpower during busy periods. He also carries out contract work such as loading onions. The same applies to harvesting and planting potatoes.
Jakobs does not have a standard construction plan for an arable farm (see box). The 35 hectares of onions and approximately 65 hectares of starch and ware potatoes cover more than two-thirds of the total area. Thanks to a lot of rental land and some plots that he exchanges, this construction plan is possible. There is no real fixed construction plan, also because the area varies slightly every year. It has been almost ten years since Jakobs started growing onions. With potato cultivation, onion cultivation has grown considerably during that period. Onion cultivation has now become an indispensable part of the company. Jakobs spends the most time with this branch.
Variety Selection
The company has various varieties of onions in the cultivation plan. The yellow varieties are Hyroad and Delta Gigant. Romy is the red variety that Jakobs has been growing for several years. "There may be a fourth variety added, because I don't have all the seed for next season yet. I said goodbye to the Donna variety after last season, which had too many problems with fusarium."
The further variety choice of Jakobs is clear, who both sells onions from the field and puts them in storage. "From my experience, the Delta Gigant yields well here and has achieved the highest prices so far. The only disadvantage is that it is a open-pollinated variety. Open-pollinated varieties often have thicker necks than hybrid varieties and the ripening is also somewhat less evenly. Suppose the Delta Gigant ends up being a bit large with thick necks or the quality is a bit disappointing, then with the hybrid variety such as Hyroad I can still choose which one I put in storage. That means less risk."
'Don't grow after the market'
Jakobs' company also grows red onions with the Romy variety. Both colors of onions have been grown for several seasons and that ratio has not changed. "That actually has to do with the risk spreading that I have. This season you also see the big differences between red and yellow onions in the price formation, while last season it was of course the other way around. Then yellow onions were double the price. of red onions." The large price fluctuations do not cause Jakobs to shift his area between red and yellow onions. "No two years are the same. If you start something, you have to continue with it and not grow after the market."
Another type of risk is whether or not to pre-commit onions to a contract. Something that Jakobs often does for a certain volume, but certainly not everything. "I haven't committed to onions yet this season, but that's still possible. Those were quite good prices that you got before and maybe I'm a bit too late with that now. I wasn't entirely sure how many hectares of onions I was going to grow, either. that just depended on whether I could get some extra land or not. I try to see each year how much risk you can run and then I actually try to have the fixed costs covered. So the rent, pesticides and other cultivation costs such as seed. I dare to take a little more risk than before. The financial scope has increased in recent years because the area has grown. That has also worked out well with the price formation and yield in recent years."
'They find red onions far too exciting'
Onion cultivation has provided a reasonably good average return in recent years, which is why a significant area expansion is expected for both red and yellow onions. Jakobs expects both colors to grow in area, but sees yellow increasing more than red. "I expect that the area expansion next season will mainly be in yellow. A lot is being expanded, especially across the border in Germany, especially in that color. They find red onions much too exciting to grow, because this turns out to be a bit more difficult. You notice that with some growers in the Netherlands."
Onion sowing has only started sporadically this season due to the heavy rainfall. The wetness is also not easy on the higher sand plots in Drenthe. In addition, the late harvesting of potatoes and sugar beets in wet soil has also taken its toll in the region, leaving many plots in poor condition. Jakobs has also not started yet, but says he is in the starting blocks.
He always uses a high sowing density to prevent there being too few plants during the season. "You can have emergence problems, damage from driving rain or drifts and you can easily spray away some plants. If I then fall below three units, it costs me yield due to too few plants. It is better to sow a few more units, especially with open-pollinated varieties. For example, I sow about 4,2 units per hectare for open-pollinated varieties and slightly less for hybrid varieties due to the more even emergence." Jakobs indicates that with these sowing units it is sometimes a good idea to count enough plants per hectare. "In extreme cases, when there are many setbacks, you may not be able to get the desired number of plants, especially with a seed-resistant variety such as Delta Gigant."
Jakobs explains that in the early growth stage on the sandy soil it is difficult to spray away hardly any plants. Weed control on sandy soil is simply a difficult task. "Especially with the loss of chlorine, you have to be on top of keeping your plot clean around the flag leaf stage." The disappearance of Vydate also makes cultivation more difficult, Jakobs indicates. Nevertheless, he is not gloomy about cultivation with the reduced package of resources. "I think that the package of resources is currently sufficient for onion cultivation, also on the sand here. The moment of spraying is more important than the resources we have. With favorable weather conditions, your spraying is so much more effective, that helps enormously. Of course you have not always those favorable conditions. I almost always spray in the evening and early in the morning. That is best when the dew is on it, so I try to take advantage of that. Combating potato storage is quite a challenge Fortunately, new techniques are also emerging that help arable farming, such as the spot sprayer. But it is still far too expensive at the moment."
Difficult to make concrete plans for the future
Jakobs doesn't really have any concrete plans for the future, but he does have ideas. More land is an option, but land is expensive. He does indicate that he may expand the storage. The storage facility is now a retaining wall with air passages and can store a maximum of 700 to 800 tons. Possible options include extending the current warehouse and thus creating more storage space for his onions. Another option is to add a shed with possibly slatted floors. Then storing potatoes for consumption can also become interesting. "But also for mechanization, because then I can accommodate everything."
It is difficult to make plans for major investments such as an additional warehouse, because the amount of available land and therefore your cultivation volume remains an uncertainty in the future. "We have quite a bit of rental land, which has grown considerably in recent years. However, this may change in the future, which remains an uncertain factor. You can make a mega investment and finance part of it yourself, but you have to have the grounds for it."
Jesse Torringa
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