New crop sees Fiesta Farms running ahead of YTD 2011
New crop sees Fiesta Farms running ahead of YTD 2011
Describing the 2012 Treasure Valley Spanish Sweet onion crop as “in general looking good,” Garry Bybee, chief executive officer of Fiesta Farms in Nyssa, OR, said, “We are running 900 loads ahead of last year at this time.”
The new-crop onions going out early were in part green-tipped, and the veteran onion grower-shipper said, “We as a region may have done ourselves a little harm running this much this early. Prices have dropped. But the good part is we could be short on the tail end.”
Garry and Marc Bybee, chief executive officer and vice president of Fiesta Farms in Nyssa, OR.He continued, “The onions themselves look good, and the major storage onion volume will be ready in late September. Size will be good, and we’ve had no major issues with disease or pests although we did have eight weeks of very hot weather during growing season.”
Mr. Bybee said the onions have had “plenty of water this year,” with much of the onion acreage under drip irrigation. But he noted the extreme conditions in Idaho and eastern Oregon, citing specifically Malheur County, OR.
“We lost more than one million acres of rangeland to fires,” he said. “That is putting a lot of pressure on the cattle industry.”
The third-generation family operation, which includes Mr. Bybee’s son, Marc, and Marc’s wife, Tamara, works with a number of outside growers and provides GPS-tied traceability and onions tested for residue, chemical misuse and pathogens by Certified Onions Inc.
Upgrades to the packing facility are made regularly, with an automated weighing system and remotely monitored storage adding to the operation’s efficiencies.
This season new Operations Manager Donnie Stowe has joined the team, Mr. Bybee said.
“I am optimistic about this crop year,” he said. “If we get our heads together here in the area, we can hold this market up. And once we get through the early stage and into storage, the deal will firm up at that point.”
