The Oregon State University Department of Agriculture Sciences Experiment Station Onion Field Day, held on Aug. 25 at the Ontario, OR, station, was well-attended by area growers, and OnionBusiness.com’s Sherise Jones was there as well and visited with Prof. Stuart Reitz, Experiment Station Manager.
Stuart provided input on the event’s success and explained initial takeaways from the onion trials.
“We are very happy to see so many folks come out and see the onion trials this season and also for the networking taking place between our staff, seed reps, and the growers that came out,” he said. “Like most growers in the Treasure Valley, we had challenges with the 2021 trials.” Stuart continued, “The heat was certainly a factor this year, but for the most part the onions varieties held up well. Of course, we won’t have the statistics until we can thoroughly evaluate each variety, and we will make that data available this winter.”
He went on to say, “We had the same crew working on the trials this year. Erik Feibert leads the project, and Alicia Rivera and Kyle Wieland work tirelessly alongside Erik to make it all happen.” And, Stuart said, “I do want to give a big shout-out to our contract labor that spent many hours weeding and taking care of the onion plants. With labor being so hard to come by these days, our labor contractor was able to put together a great crew, and we were very fortunate to have them to help out this year.”
For a list of seed companies and the seeds that were part of the trial, click on the diagram file included here.
More photos are below.
