Dutch Crop tour Onions - week 16
The best time to sow onions always turns out to be in hindsight.
After a week of favorable weather for sowing onions, rainfall over the weekend temporarily halted onion sowing in certain areas. The amount of rain varied by region, with the first irrigation reels already visible in the fields. Four Crop Tour plots have now been sown. Based on the weather forecast for the coming days, it is expected that several more plots will be added shortly.
Following the plots in Philippine and Kortgene in Zeeland, which had already been sown a week earlier, the Crop Tour plots of Jan Berend Biesheuvel from Zeewolde (Flevoland) and David de Wit from Lepelstraat in Brabant were also sown last week. While some plots are looking good and emerging quickly, others are clearly having more difficulty with uniform emergence. Normally, this is quickly visible, but this season it often remains a matter of waiting to see how things develop. The combination of wind, the low humidity of the past few days, and the presence or absence of precipitation, in particular, makes the assessment more difficult this year.
Some growers have already finished sowing, while elsewhere a considerable area still needs to be planted. In some regions, it even concerns about half that area. If things go smoothly this week, a lot can of course happen in a short time. At the same time, there are also fields where the onions are further along. For instance, the onions of Jacky Dieleman from Philippine in Zeeland have already emerged. He sowed his onions three weeks ago, on March 20.
It is still early
Although conditions for sowing onions were good last week, quite a few onions still need to be sown. Many Crop Tour participants indicate that it is still early enough and that they have therefore not been in a hurry to sow onions. Reinder Hogenhout from Kimswerd in Friesland belongs to that group. He considers the temperatures generally still too low and also points to the rainfall of the past week, during which a total of about 15 millimeters fell. As a result, according to him, the conditions are currently not optimal for sowing.
At Reinder's, there is also pressure from the grass root-knot nematode in his onions. According to him, this is one of the most troublesome nematodes in onions, where plant loss can be substantial. Last year the damage remained limited, but three years earlier it was quite different, he indicates. That experience makes Reinder patient when sowing his onions. "Let the temperature rise first," he says. "So that the onions can continue to grow well and eventually emerge quickly."
Ruud Vossebeld from Beemte Broekland in Gelderland is also in no hurry to sow his onions. "As long as the weather forecasts remain good, I am in no rush," he says. First, manure still needs to be spread on the field this week, after which the land needs to be plowed, Ruud indicates. "If all goes well, I can sow the onions at the end of the week, otherwise they will go in next week." Just like Reinder, Ruud also finds it still too cold outside. He indicates that he is not someone who rushes to sow onions early in the season anyway. He emphasizes that he likes to see the crop continue to grow quickly and evenly after sowing.
First reels already pulled out
After sowing the onions, the seeds of David de Wit from Lepelstraat in Brabant were not settling well enough in the soil everywhere. Because there was little to no rainfall last week, he decided to immediately deploy the sprinkler and irrigate his onions with about 10 millimeters of water. With this application, he aims to ensure a more uniform emergence of the crop.
David wasn't the only one busy with the sprinkler. Jacky Dieleman was too. He was irrigating his onion sets and wasn't the only one in the area. On many soils, especially heavier ones, the seeds are not firmly enough anchored in the moist soil, and a shower of water is needed to help the crop get off to a good start. According to Jacky, previously sown beets and onions are pressing against a crust in some places, making harrowing or irrigation necessary to get the seedlings above ground.
Jan Willem Veldman
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