Growing onions on raised beds and ridges

A successful harvest starts with preparing a beautiful seed bed. The seed onion is very sensitive to structure damage and moisture nuisance. For these reasons, research is being conducted into onion cultivation in a different seedbed than traditional cultivation in flat fields.

Improving the seedbed leads to better plant emergence and crop condition and thus also to better plant resistance later in the season. By improving the seedbed and thus increasing the resilience of onions, they are less affected by diseases (such as fusarium), pests and poor soil and moisture conditions. Uireka is therefore trying out 'new' cultivation methods this year by using a different cultivation bed. For example, traditional flat-field cultivation is compared with a raised cultivation bed and cultivation on ridges. The first test fields have now been laid.

In one of the objects, 3000 raised beds were constructed in one working pass with a special Struik Varix 2 cultivator, which raised the onions by 10 to 12 cm. Each bed is milled loose over the full width and simultaneously pressed with a roller to be able to sow the onions well at the top. In another object, rows were created with a ridge cultivator for chicory (row distance 50 cm), where the onions were sown at the top of the ridge. A seed drill with 3 cm wide coulters was used for ridge cultivation. This makes it possible to triple the seed quantity per ridge, so that, converted per hectare, the normal amount of seed is still used. The last object is to sow onions in the traditional flat field cultivation.

This article is from Ureka† Uireka is a unique chain project, where Hazera participates in. Its aim is to improve the quality and thereby strengthen the export position of the Dutch onion.