Late harvest
Onion campaign behind schedule, but prices are holding steady

By Larry Meyer
Argus Observer
Wednesday, September 3, 2008 12:17 PM PDT

Rosa Garza (left), Isidro Tadeo and Adala Mayana prepare rows of onions for the harvester near Ontario. An average onion crop is expected as the harvest begins to build.

ONTARIO — While still early, the 2008 onion harvest could bring good news and not-so-good news for area producers.

The bad news: Early samples indicate the crop will be about average this year.

The good news: If prices hold up, area onion growers may be cheering, a far cry from last season when the crop was excellent but prices tumbled.

“It looks like an average crop,” Malheur County Extension Agent Lynn Jensen said Tuesday. “It’s late.”

Right now, according to Jensen and some area growers, the onion crop is anywhere from 10 days to two weeks late. But, it has been that way all season as the onions were late emerging because of the cool weather.

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 Size is the main casualty of the late season.

“Yield will be down,” Jensen said, particularly when compared with last year’s record yield.

By having a cool spring, big onion tops did not grow and, without the big tops, there will not be any big onions, Jensen explained.

Also, yellow nutsedge is a severe problem in many areas, he noted. This weed  takes away essential nutrients, water and light needed for the crops.

“It competes pretty well with onions,” Jensen said. Depending on the severity, yellow nutsedge can reduce onion yields by 50 to 60 percent, he said.

Ontario area grower Brian Kameshige said he has fields where the stands are thin but said he is happy with the results he recorded from his fields near Ontario.

“There are a lot of super colossals and colossals,” Kameshige said.

Kameshige also conceded the harvest is running behind.

“Everything is late,” Kameshige said. “Everything is behind.”

Another grower said his early harvest shows the effects of the late start.

“I think my (onion) size  is way down,” Roy Hasebe said.

While last year he had 60 percent colossals or more, this year he estimates it could well be 25 percent.

However, he said, prices are still stable.

 “The prices are good,” he said.

“Excellent, Excellent,” is how Hasebe described last year’s crop, with 1,100 to 1,400 hundredweight yield. This year he said he is predicting something in the neighborhood of 700 hundredweight.

“A small top does not give a big bulb.” he said. His onions were very late in coming up, Hasebe said, and just were not able to get any size.