Technicians from INTA La Consulta, Mendoza, developed a new onion variety that stands out because of its white bulbs, high total solids content, earliness, and good agronomic performance. These ideal characteristics make Alfredo INTA a distinguished cultivar for the dehydrated industry. The new variety was presented in INTA Expone Cuyo from September 4 to 6 in Pocito, San Juan.
According to its breeder, Claudio Galmarini, "this new cultivar will allow the industry to dehydrate onions between October and December with a good industrial quality, which represents an important contribution to the sector's competitiveness."
"The new variety has 20 percent soluble solids," stated Galmarini. He said percentage had been achieved after twelve years of work, from a "recurrent selection in which selfing and recombinations cycles were interspersed within and between selected lines from a population of the Ancasti cultivar that had 17% soluble solids."
In this regard, he stressed being able to "increase the percentage of soluble solids" because it is a "fundamental" feature for industrial performance. "The higher the total solids content is, the lower the amount of energy used to extract water from the bulb," he said.
"Even though only 3 percent of the onions produced in the country is for the dehydrated industry, it comes almost entirely from Mendoza," said the technician, adding that 40 percent of the production was exported mainly to Brazil.
Dehydrated onions are used to prepare cream soups, broths, food flavorings and bread, among other things. They are also used in the pharmaceutical industry.
This development is framed in a Technology Transfer agreement between the agency and the company Unilever of Argentina, which has been working on cultivars suitable for the industry of dehydrated onions for over 10 years.
Source: infocampo.com.ar