Dutch Crop tour onions - week 25
How is the status of onions compared to other years?
No growing season is the same and the first half of 2024 emphasizes this once again. The plots with sowing onions, even those sown late, have already had to endure quite a bit. The differences in growth stages vary widely. An average yield therefore seems far away. But how are the onion plots doing compared to other seasons?
The soaking wet spring meant that on average sowing was done much later than normal for onion growers. Some were able to get started in the second week of April, others left the seed in the packaging until the beginning of May. The average sowing date at Boerenbusiness Dutch Crop tour was released on April 19, which means that the onions have had less time to grow so far. The fact that it was also relatively chilly for the time of year, the soil was often completely saturated and soil herbicides worked a little too well, did not benefit growth everywhere. With all these different factors, growth retardation is a fact this season.
Comparisons of crop tour plots with other seasons confirm this growth delay. The growers also indicate this. The growth stages of the crop vary considerably this season. This has to do with sowing dates, but also who has and has not had downpours. Or better said: a downpour at a less unfavorable time, which hindered growth less. The images show the dates and (same) location. There are not (suitable) images of all plots in this period. Some onion growers have only been participating for a few years, so there are only images from two years. Compared to 2023, the growth lag in some images seems not to be too bad. It is of course still fresh in the minds of many growers that the conditions were different last year, but also not favorable for the onions. More about that shortly.
What is striking is that the crop is less developed this growing season. The crop is a lot smaller compared to other years. What is also striking is the difference in the position on the same plot. Due to the heavy rainfall, places have been flooded, places where water has stood (for a longer period of time) are lagging behind and the poor structure is reflected in the crop. As a result, onions sometimes have 2 to 5 pipes in the same row. Real outliers that perform very well, as is often the case in other years, are difficult to find in all provinces.
Comparisons are often made with the past growing season. The start of 2023 was also poor, initially due to precipitation, followed by a very poor and dry period. At that time, this backlog was not made up, not even in July 2023 when it rained a lot. The growing and weather conditions were very different than today. As an example, the Crop tour plot in Lepelstraat (North Brabant). Onion grower David de Wit irrigated his onions there for the fourth (!) time at the end of June. It is very difficult to say whether the plots with onions have a greater or smaller backlog than last year due to the large differences per plot. The images confirm that there is a backlog.
Jesse Torringa
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