Featured image: Imperial Valley organic onions, courtesy of Mike Smythe with West Valley Packing
MARKET
Idaho-E. Oregon/Washington
John Vlahandreas with Wada Farms in Salem, OR, told us on Jan. 5 that the freight situation is impacting onion demand this week. “I would have more sales if I could find trucks and then get them at reasonable rates to move loads,” he said. “When a truck is $14,000 to the East Coast, buyers are not going to want to pay that, but they are going to get their onions somewhere. So if it’s buying imports from Spain or the Netherlands or even Canada cheaper on the East Coast than for what I can get them shipped over there for, some buyers might be willing to go for it. That’s a simple truth and there’s not much I can do about it. It’s a terrible, terrible situation, and it’s just getting worse.” John continued, “On the other hand, quality has been good and the market has remained steady. So it’s all about this freight deal. It’s really hurting us here.”
Idaho-E. Oregon:
Herb Haun with Haun Packing in Weiser, ID, told us on Jan. 5 he’ll be cleaning up the 2021-22 storage in the next five to six weeks. “Demand is good,” Herb said, “but transportation is the worst it’s been all year. The situation is limiting us more today than it has in some time.” Right now Haun Packing is shipping mainly yellows, he said.
Dwayne Fisher with Champion Produce Sales in Parma, ID, reported in on Jan. 5, saying, “The market has really hit its stride this week. Strong demand and higher prices have been the theme this week and will continue for the remainder of the season.” He continued, “The freight difficulties have intensified with the holidays and weather disruptions. We already have lived this season with freight difficulties, but this week has been on steroids! Shelves are empty, and people need product. Our farms and growers need these price increase to naturally compensate for the increase shrink that comes as we march toward our finish line.” Dwayne concluded, “Lots of optimism as we push to April. Our growers and customers can always rest assured that our onions are 365 days, American soils!”
Dan Phillips with Central Produce/Eagle Eye reported in on Jan. 5 from his Payette, ID, office. “For this time of year, demand has been pretty decent,” Dan said. “You always expect it to fall off after the holidays, but we’ve been busy. I can only speak for yellows and reds because we are out of whites now, but buyers are looking for both in all sizes and the big stuff too. Of course, reds remain a hot item because there isn’t a lot out there.” He continued, “The market is firm. In fact, there may be a move up this week. Our quality is still good, and that’s our job – to make sure all the pretty onions go in the bag.” On transportation, Dan said he has never seen it this bad. “We all expected the holidays to be terrible for trucks, but it’s as bad as I have ever seen it,” he said. “It’s nearly impossible to get a truck, and when you do it is so expensive. The weather isn’t helping.”
Corinne, UT:
Don Ed Holmes with The Onion House in Weslaco, TX, told us on Jan. 5 he’s “still shipping all three colors in Utah,” and he has indicated supplies will run into February. When asked about transportation, Don Ed had a single word response: “Terrible.”
Atlanta:
John Adams with John Adams Produce reported on Jan. 5, “The market is steady. Reds are tightening up a little bit in Parma, ID.” He added, “The biggest problem we have right now is getting trucks in there. To put it in perspective, they were over 1,100 orders to be picked up in Idaho, and there were eight trucks. I’ve had to push my orders back by a week until we can get trucks in there.” John said, “The weather is terrible – the roads are a sheet of ice, and no one wants to go in there.” Other than reds being tight, he continued, “all the colors are plenty full,” and he said, “My foodservice customers have notified their customers of the weather out there and that there will be a delay in receiving product. A lot of sheds are shut down out there because the floors are full of product, but we have no one to pick them up.” And, he said, “I was quoted up to $18,000 for a truck to go out to Idaho or Oregon. We were able to get two loads out so far this week, and hopefully, the weather lets up out there, these truck prices come down and we can get product moving again.” John added, “We should be pulling out of Mexico in the next few weeks and that should ease up a lot of the tension with these trucks.”
CROP
Rio Grande Valley, TX/Tampico, Mexico:
Don Ed Holmes with The Onion House in Weslaco told us on Jan. 5 the Rio Grande Valley weather has been good, and the crop is progressing. “The weather is more seasonable,” he said. About the Tampico crop, he said, “Mexico cooled off. We’re still planning on first loads on Jan. 20.”
David DeBerry with Southwest Onion Growers in McAllen, TX, said on Jan. 5 the Rio Grande Valley crop has “some skimpy stands in spots,” but overall looks good, and the season is expected to start March 15-20. Wintergarden, he said, “is barely popping out of the ground.” David said Tampico will start up Jan. 20, with “seven to 10 days to get up to all three colors.” He expects to start with yellows, then whites, and then bring in reds. David also said about half the Wintergarden crop will be grown on the Mexico side “where we have plenty of labor.”
California Imperial Valley:
Robert Bell with Western Onion in Camarillo, CA, told us on Jan. 5 the Imperial Valley crop is “proceeding nicely and we’re hoping for a good spring market if the NW cleans up early or their remaining supplies are low come April.”
John Vlahandreas with Wada Farms in Salem, OR, told us on Jan. 5 that the crop in the Imperial Valley is coming along nicely. “It’s been very nice growing weather,” John said. “Though we do need to get through January and February weather, if this good growing weather can hold on, we may be looking at an early start – like around April 15-20. So we are looking forward to a nice season in the desert.”
Mike Smythe with West Valley Packing sent in some beautiful photos of Imperial Valley conventional and organic onions. “We got an early start on planting our organic program this year,” Mike said. “We hope to start mid-April.” He added, “We increased our intermediate varieties due to water issues in the Central Valley, and with the exception of the last three days, we’ve had above-average temperatures in the area.”
Conventional crop progress:
Organic crop progress:
New Zealand:
Robert Bell with Western Onion in Camarillo, CA, provided us with an update on the New Zealand crop of New Zealand Onion Co on Jan. 5., providing photos of Tasman Early Long Keeper onions in Pukekohe and the Tasman Red Devil Early Intermediate Day red. The written report from the grower said, “We had that very hot dry weather in November and early December. Then we had all that rain and what most growers didn’t see was the mildew. Get in on the stress from the lack of irrigation. Anyone that had a good irrigation system came through the dry weather ok, but the ones without have suffered badly, and everybody has different situations. Overall we came through ok, but the heat has knocked the size back a little even though we applied a lot of water. Best onions are in our trials under drip.” Many thanks to Robert for sending along New Zealand onion photos this week.
