Mother Nature stresses crop, but good volume of onions remains in Idaho-eastern Oregon

Though their early season sizing and yields were off compared with a year ago, Idaho-eastern Oregon onion shippers predicted a quality crop of onions this year.

Good supplies of all onion sizes are projected but peak sizing may be at the lower end of the normal range, shippers said. “Certainly, the hot weather has had a negative impact on our yields,” said Tiffany Cruickshank, assistant general manager for Nyssa, Ore.-based Snake River Produce. She said the Idaho-Eastern Oregon onion growing region has seen temperatures hovering at or above 100 degrees since late June. “Coupled with a very dry and windy spring, I do not anticipate the yields being on par with 2020,” Cruickshank said.

High temperatures and windy conditions affected some fields, said Joe Ange, director of business development for Eagle Eye Produce, Idaho Falls, Idaho. “I think overall we’ll see sizing trending down slightly, especially on early-harvested stuff that we’re getting into right now,” he said in early August.

Harvest was picking up speed in the Treasure Valley by mid-August, said Shay Myers, CEO of Owyhee Produce, Parma, Idaho. Myers said yields could be down significantly from both last year and the five-year average. “At this point, it looks like we’ll be probably 20% off from our five-year average, which will put us between 30% and 40% off of what we were last year,” Myers said, noting that last year’s crop showed yields that were 20% above normal. Several factors contributed to lower yields, Myers said.Before irrigation was available, a dry spring didn’t give some fields enough water to ideally sprout the onion crop. “We didn’t have any timely rains and we had some of the windiest conditions in the spring on historical record,” Myers said.

The winds and dry planting conditions created sparser stands of onion plants in early fields. Some of those fields will show good sizing because fewer plants were competing for water and could size up nicely, he said.However, in some fields with good stands, the heat has caused sizes to be slightly smaller than normal, Myers said. Smoke from Western wildfires could also slightly limit crop potential, he said. The smoke has particulates that can drop on necks of onions during early stages of growth. That could affect the long-term storage quality of some onions, but that is hard to determine at this point, Myers said.

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