The Midwest onion season looks set to be late by about two weeks this year. Persistent winter weather resulted in a late spring and subsequently planting began later than usual. Since then, however, conditions have been favorable during the summer growing season.
"It looks as though the Midwest won't start harvesting until the second week of September," said Tim Hanline of Onion Boy Inc. "We had a late spring and got started on planting later than planned. Instead of April 21, planting began on May 10. The summer has been nice with the right amount of rainfall along with decent temperatures."
Hanline also noted that other regions are set to start imminently. "The Northwest is due to start shipping this week and they are reporting a bumper crop," he said. "New York and other areas of the Northeast should also start shipping in a week or two."
Yield and quality looking good so far
Although the onions are still in the ground, growers are cautiously optimistic about what they are seeing in the fields right now. The plants are looking healthy and yield is expected to be at least close to the average, if not more.
"The stands are looking very good at this stage with yield predicted to be close to the average or above," Hanline shared. "There has been no pest or disease pressure and overall the crop is looking very promising. We won't really know however, until we start packing the onions. There have been times in the past when the crop looked good, only for there to be disappointment once we started harvesting. But the weather has been conducive to good crop quality and we hope it will continue to cooperate."
Growers barely breaking even
Right now, storage onions have largely been exhausted and shippers are supplementing supply with onions from California and Mexico. The market remains flat and prices are low. This year hasn't been a good one for onion growers as plentiful supply has meant extended low prices.
"The market has been poor this year," Hanline said. "Prices have been very low and growers are only just breaking even. This is especially so for yellow onions, with the situation slightly better on whites and reds. With the predicted bumper crop out of the Northwest just about to start up, we expect the market to remain low in the early part of Fall."
For more information:
Tim Hanline
Onion Boy Inc.
Tel: +1 (419) 342-2202