Crop News for August 4

NORTHWEST:

On Aug. 3 Stefan Matheny at River Point Farms in Hermiston, OR, told us the operation will start shipping its intermediate onions in about 10 days.  All colors and all sizes will be available. As with River Point Farms’ transplants, the intermediate storage onions have benefited from the area’s favorable weather conditions, and Stefan said he’s seeing both very good quality and good volume this season. 

Jim Schram with Snake River Produce. Co.

IDAHO-E. OREGON

Kay Riley of Snake River Produce Co. in Nyssa, OR, said his operation will start shipping on Monday, Aug. 8, and he “expects to be very busy by mid-week.” Kay also said SRP will have yellows and reds available out of the gate, followed by whites the following Monday. All sizes will be available, with smaller volumes of supers and colossals at the start. But availability on the larger sizes will increase over the next couple of weeks. Growing conditions this season have been very pleasant, and the crop is looking exceptional, he said. “With some thinner stands, it’s expected that we will have a nice supply of larger sized onions this season” he said. 

COLORADO:

R.T. Sakata of Sakata Farms in Brighton told OnionBusiness.com that a July 29 hailstorm northeast of Denver missed his family’s operation for the most part. “We were pretty lucky,” Robert said. “There was a hailstorm that went by the Ft. Lupton area, but in our fields it just dropped a few golf ball-sized hail stones… but very few.” Just one day earlier R.T. had told us, “Our onion crop and those in our area are mostly in very good condition.” Because Sakata Farms is busy with sweet corn harvest, R.T. said, “We intentionally don’t start onion harvest until the middle of September, and I think we are on schedule for that.” And he added, “We are looking for a good harvest and a good market this fall.” 

David DeBerry of Southwest Onion Growers/Utah Onions in McAllen, TX, said that onions his company handles on Colorado’s Western Slope are “on schedule for a slow start around Aug. 25 with decent volume by early September.” David said that all of the early onions through the end of October will be hand trimmed tops and roots, and he added, “We’ll have limited volume of some hybrid sweets to offer with the reds and whites and early yellow granos.”  

WISCONSIN:

Doug Bulgrin of Gumz Farms in Endeavor, WI, said the 2016 crop is starting to mature, and Gumz is on track for starting harvest the third week of this month, and Gumz expects to be in full swing by Sept. 1 with availability of yellows and reds in all sizes. Whites will follow later in September. Doug said, “We’re very happy with this year’s crop, and the quality is very good.”