Dutch Crop tour onions - week 39
Onion harvest well advanced, most growers are already finished
Things have been going well in onion country over the past two weeks. Growers were able to harvest under good conditions and the weather conditions remained favourable for loading. The result is that the 2024 onion harvest is well advanced and is already nearing its end.
This is also evident from the Boerenbusiness Dutch Crop tour. The onion harvest started a little later than in an 'average' year due to the later sowing of the wet spring, but at the beginning of September it was already quite busy on the plots. Despite the occasional shower, as was the case in mid-September, the weather conditions remained favourable for the harvest for many growers, which meant that the harvested hectares added up quickly. This is evident during a tour of the participating growers of the Crop Tour. In a short time, there has been an incredible amount of much work done, regardless of whether in the south or the north of the land. In the meantime, all ten Gewastour plots have been cleared and the majority has been loaded or behind the planks.
Several growers saw that the crop was deteriorating very rapidly at the end of August and the beginning of September. Some plots were very affected by the high fungal pressure, which caused the crop to wear out quickly. Other plots were simply ready to be harvested. It is not surprising that growers seized their chances under the current harvest conditions and got a lot of onions off the land. The pressure of the change in weather that we are currently experiencing has also helped to get the onion work out of the way. "The onions are nicely inside before the rain", according to several growers.
Many growers have the other plots of the land in addition to the Gewastour plot, which means that the majority are really already finished with the 2024 harvest. Those who delivered from the land and had to rely on the trucks are by no means always finished. Spread across the country, many plots are still (partly) in the swath, because in such a limited harvest period there are simply not enough trucks to pick up all the onions. That is a bottleneck this year. However, many Gewastour plots went into the shed. Onion grower Arjen Jakobs already harvested his Gewastour plot in Wezup (Drenthe) at the beginning of September and brought it in last weekend, nicely before the rain. The onions are in storage at his company.
In the Frisian Kimswerd, onion grower Reinder Hogenhout was also busy with the onions. In the course of last week, all the onions, including the Gewastour plot with drip irrigation, were still harvested. Last weekend and early this week they managed to harvest everything under good conditions. The Gewastour plot has become a coarse batch.
Also in Marknesse (Flevoland) onion grower Peter Holster drove his onions in early this week. He was first in the seed potatoes and was then able to load his onions, again before the rain. That also became a coarse batch.
All plots of the Crop Tour have been sampled and next week an overview of the trial harvest figures will follow, just like every year with the Crop Tour.
Jesse Torringa
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