Bland Farms ready to roll into season with a thriving crop of Vidalia onions
Bland Farms ready to roll into season with a thriving crop of Vidalia onions
Atypically warm weather and heavy rain during planting made for a dicey start to the Vidalia onion season. But, said Delbert Bland of Bland Farms LLC in Glennville, GA, “the crop woke up about a month ago and they are beautiful right now.”
“We did have a difficult time when we first set out because it was so wet and so hot, unusually warm,” Bland said. “Now it looks like we should have a very good crop of onions at this point. So we’re excited about it. The sweet onion market is strong and it should be pretty strong going right into Vidalia so that’ll be great.”
Georgia Commissioner of Agriculture Gary Black has set the official start date for the Vidalia season at April 25, but Bland says he will have onions on the market well before that.
“Our agronomist shows that we will be shipping onions on the 8th or 9th of April. That all depends on the weather, but the maturity of them is moving on,” he said. “They will reach their peak sometime around the 8th through the 10th. That’s actually shipping — we’ll hit the harvest around the 5th. We plan to start shipping the first part of April — that’s not unusual for us — and I guarantee you unless the weather changes we will ship onions on the 8th, 9th or 10th.”
Overall the industry will see a minor reduction in acreage due to the early inclement weather. Bland said his crop “might be up a hair,” but overall he expects the industry to wind up with “around 11,000 acres, we usually have 12,000, but it doesn’t make a difference — we’ll have enough that if we have a good crop you’ll never know the difference.”
Bland’s organic program continues to grow. Last year “we had a difficult time, as did everybody in the region, but this year they look good, we’re pretty excited about ‘em,” he said. “Organics are no longer optional — it’s one of those things you have to do, you’ve got to, so we’ll have a lot of organics — about 200 acres, about 7 percent of our overall crop and that’s about our sales.”
Bland’s sweet potato program, launched two years ago, is thriving as well.
“We’re probably going to double our acreage by next year,” Bland said. “Our sweet potato program is coming strong. Some foods are fads, some are staples. Sweet potatoes have always been popular, but with all the good news about their health benefits, they’ve gone beyond a fad. We’re gonna be sweet, whether it’s onions or potatoes. I believe we can co-market that way. There’s no reason why you can’t have a bag of onions and a bag of sweet potatoes set beside each other in the store.”
