The Onion House switches to bins to improve onion quality
The Onion House switches to bins to improve onion quality
This season, The Onion House LLC, in Weslaco, TX, has totally transitioned its harvest protocol from sacks to bins.
Don Ed Holmes, owner of the firm, said the switch to plastic bins brings a better onion into the packingshed. “The switch has cut way back on bruising and allowed us to deliver a higher-quality onion to our customers with better shelf life.”
Speaking to The Produce News in late April, Holmes said those higher-quality onions should start reaping rewards for the firm as he expected the market to strengthen and demand to increase as the calendar turns from April to May.
On April 18, he said Mexico’s spring onion crop was just about finished, and Texas would be the main supplier of onions from the area from late April into June.
At this time of the year, spring onions are produced in both Mexico and Texas’ Rio Grande Valley, with the Mexican onions coming on first. For most of February and March, Holmes said Mexican shippers were crossing only about 20-30 loads a day, yet the market remained fairly good. “And then one day (in early April) 170 loads came across and that created some downward pressure on the price.”
But Holmes repeated that Mexico will be out of the deal by late April and the volume in South Texas is down. “We are down about 20 percent in acreage and we have normal yields compared to last year when we had really good yields. So we are expecting a very good market,” he said.
Holmes admitted that the early market was disappointing given the supply conditions. On April 18, he said the market was only $10-11 per carton.
The decreased acreage in Texas is all about water, according to this longtime observer and participant in the Texas onion deal. He said both of the local reservoirs have water levels well below normal and many growers did not receive a full allotment of water for this growing season, resulting in a cutback in acreage. Holmes said the drought over much of the western half of the United States is impacting many of the onion growing regions including those in California, Oregon and Colorado.
He added that if Texas doesn’t get more than its fair share of water during the tropical storm season this summer, it is going to be very difficult to make a crop next year.
