News from Onion House’s Don Ed Holmes in Weslaco, TX, on Nov. 3 was that his area could see another rainy weekend, but Holmes told OnionBusiness.com planting continues in his region.
“It’s been unusually wet here,” Holmes said. “Rain has been coming every weekend, hitting on Friday night. And I’ll be danged if that’s not the forecast for this weekend, although the system might go north of us.”
He said he’s lost 45 acres, “about 15 percent,” of his onions to the rains, but he added, “There’s still a lot more that survived. We’re optimistic, but we do need some dry weather.”
Holmes said growers have “at least another week to 10 days” to finish planting, and he said if the weather cooperates, his area would be inside its season window.
Growers took the first hit from storms pushed northward when Hurricane Patricia hit Mexico on Oct. 23. Recorded rainfall varied between 1 and 20 inches in parts of South Texas, causing a temporary setback in planting.
In the McAllen-Weslaco area, reports about Patricia’s spawn said total rainfall for McAllen on Oct. 24 was slightly more than two inches, and Weslaco received nearly 10 inches of rain.
Last weekend another round of storms brought 1.5 to 3 inches, and Holmes said some fields that had been hard-hit by Patricia didn’t make it through the second series of downpours.
“That was enough to do them in,” he said.
And the National Weather Service’s long-range forecast calls for a 40 percent chance of thunderstorms Friday, increasing to a 50 percent chance on Saturday and decreasing to 40 percent Saturday night. Sunday the chance of rain drops to 30 percent.
