Despite the extremely wet and cold season, unlike many other new season produce sectors, the British onion set crop has started well, due to the fact that they were established during the drier and more favourable spring, allowing them to ride the storm.
“Yields are normal and the recent warmer and dry weather window has allowed a good harvest to deliver a quality product into store,” says John Patrick, chairman of the British Onion Producers’ Association.
The seed crop has also established well. “Plant populations are on target, however the challenging growing conditions of June and July still mean that all is to play for as the crop finishes its growing phase,” explains Patrick. “These conditions have also delayed maturity of the crop, meaning that harvest will not start until September, 10 days later than normal, and we will be reliant on a good weather window in September to ensure target yields and quality are achieved.”
Robert Oldershaw Sr, of the Oldershaw Group, has a slightly different take on the situation. “It’s a reasonably good year for onions sets, although harvest is very difficult due to the bad weather. It’s too early to say for onions grown from seeds, but yields will be lower than last year.”
Meanwhile, in Holland, onions sales for the coming season will be down on last year, according to Dutch growers. Approximately 10 per cent less acreage and 10 per cent lower yield is estimated, figures that will be reflected in many other European countries too. “Onion sales are down worldwide [following] the last disastrous season,” comments Gerard Hoekman, general manager at Mulder Onions. “The weather so far hasn’t been ideal but the next three to four weeks are the most important ones. If the weather stays stable and we have dry sunny days, we will have a fantastic crop and higher price levels are to be expected.” -
TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT
Produce World will be the first UK company to install Near Infra-Red (NIR) technology, to detect internal defects in onions, in its factories.
The UK veg supplier will be trialling the detection system as part of an ongoing improvement campaign.
Andrew Holding, business unit director for Produce World Rustler, said: “We have been monitoring the progress of this technology for some time, and it was always our intention to retrofit such a system to our MAF grader. However, we want to be sure that it would perform under day-to-day operating conditions and make commercial sense. “By definition internal defects are impossible to detect. As a result of using the very best growers, such defects only occur on a small percentage of the crop. However, a reduction in this figure will enable us to further improve quality and customer satisfaction. -.
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