News | March 4th, 2021

2018 Onion Season

Hi and welcome to our first news update on our new website. We will be regularly updating this post with general market information and how the crops are progressing through out the growing season.Overall the growing season throughout Europe has being extremely difficult with yields expected to be down between 40-50% throughout Northern Europe. The average acreage of onions growing in Ireland is down 27% this year. Yields will also be back per acre due to only some growers having access to irrigation.Our current best estimate for spring drilled crops is that yields will be down by 30% giving an average yield of around 30-35t/ha dry ex. store. The rest of Northern Europe is in the same situation with record breaking temperatures recently seen across Belgium, Netherlands and Germany.

The below pictures was taken of an Irish crop of Onion Sets on 12th of July 2018. These
were planted on the 06th of May 2018.

The 30,000ha of onions grown in the Netherlands has been particularly badly affected with temperatures close to 30°C since the beginning of July – peaking at 38.2°C last Friday (dubbed ‘Furnace Friday’ in the press). Even with 40% of the Dutch crop being grown on the Polders, where soil moisture levels can be relatively easily raised, yields are forecasted to be 40% down on normal.