MARKET
California Five Points:
John Vlahandreas with Wada Farms in Idaho Falls, ID, reported on June 28 that currently Wada is in a two-three day gap and will start again on Friday. “Demand has been very good, and the market has been OK,” John said. “Right now it looks like we will go until Aug. 15, and we have all sizes available.”
Mexico:
Don Ed Holmes with The Onion House in Weslaco, TX, said on June 28 he’s is shipping whites and yellows out of Chihuahua now and will continue for another two weeks into early July. “The onions look good now,” he said. “Sizing is good.” He said he is “hearing that generally the market is trending a little better right now.”
Dale DeBerry with AllVeg Sales in Boerne, TX, told us he is moving whites out of Durango, MX, now. “Quality is very good,” he said. “We don’t have yellows or reds right now but hope to have them at the end of next week,” Dale said. He said pricing was picking up, $11-$12 for jumbos and $10 on mediums, and he’ll be shipping out of Durango through August. “By then we might have onions out of Washington,” he said.
Steve Smith with National Onion Inc. in Las Cruces, NM, told us June 28 that his Mexican deal had lost some whites due to heat. “We’re still shipping out of Chihuahua, but we’ll be cleaning up after Friday,” he said.
Texas:
A market wrap-up from David DeBerry at Southwestern Onions in Mission indicated on June 28 that the central Texas deal was a good one in 2017. “We were up 30 percent in onions over the previous year,” he said, noting that Southwestern cleaned up in that region on June 5.
New Mexico:
Steve Smith with National Onion Inc. in Las Cruces said on June 28 that he’ll be shipping from the Deming facility through the end of July. “Right now we’re shipping yellow colossals and supers,” Steve said. “The market seems to be getting better, I think because people are running out of onions. We’re also starting to even out on sizes, and prices are getting better.” National sells onions year-round, and Steve said when the New Mexico deal cleans up, he’ll sell out of the Northwest and also Colorado.
John Vlahandreas with Wada Farms in Idaho Falls, ID, said Wada has been very happy with the New Mexico season so far. “Everything is going really well for us in New Mexico,” John said on June 28. “The quality is great. Demand and the market are steady. It’s all good.” John said Wada has availability across the board and will continue shipping through mid-August.
CROP
Northern Colorado:
Ryan Fagerberg with Fagerberg Farms/Fagerberg Produce in Eaton told us on June 26 that his fields were spared from much of the bad weather that the Front Range experienced earlier in the growing season. “We have avoided any major hail storms,” Ryan said. He anticipates a normal start date around the first week of August, and he said Fagerberg will have “all colors and sizes to start.” He said fresh crop sweets will be available from early August through mid-October, and yellows, reds and whites will be available from the start date through the end of the storage crop finish in mid-March. Ryan also announced that Fagerberg Farms is now a certified organic grower and will have organic onions available this season.
Colorado Western Slope:
David DeBerry with Southwestern Onions in McAllen, TX, told us June 28 the Western Slope deal is looking very good at this point. “We’ll start in Colorado right around Labor Day,” David said. “Reports are really good, and we’ll start with the intermediates. We expect a normal crop in size and yield, and we’ll ship through late January.”
Don Ed Holmes with The Onion House in Weslaco, TX, said on June 28 that one of his primary growers on the Western Slope of Colorado told him the 2017 crop “looks really good, and the weather has been great – so it’s possible the crop could start coming in a week to 10 days early, and we could have onions as early as the last week of August.” He added, “Colorado has intermediates and long days, and the intermediates will come off the third week of August and ship until the storage crop comes in. So we should have a good flow of onions into January.”
Idaho-Eastern Oregon:
Grant Kitamura with Murakami Produce Co. LLC (now Baker & Murakami Produce Co.) in Ontario, OR, told us June 28 the 2017 onion crop has been growing well. “It’s amazing how well the onions are growing,” Grant said. “It’s all on Mother Nature from here on, but if the recent perfect growing weather holds, we should have a high quality crop,” Grant reported estimated yields are yet to be seen. “We really need continued good summer weather and a warm fall,” he said. “We plan to start harvest and shipments the first week of August.”
Mexico:
David DeBerry with Southwest Onions in McAllen, TX, said crews will be planting seedbeds in Mexico in the next several weeks, and the crop will come off between Jan. 15-20.
Don Ed Holmes with The Onion House in Weslaco, TX, told us the Mexican seedbeds are being planted, and transplants will come off the third week of January.”
This week’s Photo Gallery, California Arvin, CA: View photos of organic and conventional onions submitted by Robert Bell with Western Onion Sales.
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