April 3, 2025
Dominic Cosgrove, Agronomist for Turley Farms shares his end of the season update with Onions NZ. Turley Farms is a family run business, owned and operated by Murray and Margaret Turley. They run a large-scale arable, vegetable & pipfruit operation in Temuka, South Canterbury, with onions being one of many crops they produce.
Despite a cooler season, the impact on crop yield, harvest timeframes and quality has been minimal and the Turley Farms team are pleased with their onion product this season.
Growing conditions
The 2024-25 onion season in Canterbury has been a “back to front” growing season in a lot of regards. A southerly and easterly weather pattern in South Canterbury has predominated, keeping temperatures lower and rainfall higher, especially during the second half of the season.
Regular spring rains with good planting windows meant crops were planted in good time and established well. The early growing season was user-friendly and helped with good weed control and crop protection timings. A couple of big rains in October did cause localised flooding/wet spots in places. Thankfully, there was limited impact to onion growth.
Crop disease mitigation
A soil moisture deficit and high temperatures in mid-December changed very quickly to a damp, cool, overcast pattern in January. Dense foliage meant disease pressure was very high through the critical “bulbing” stage. This necessitated regular crop inspections and increased disease protection measures to keep Downy Mildew, Botrytis and Stemphylium at bay.
Onion Harvest
Most onion crops have finished well and crop disease has not been a limiting factor during harvesting. Early crops have been lifted/harvested in reasonable time but damp weather has delayed this a bit and slowed down the natural process of field curing. The onion harvest is now 60% done and the focus is now shifting to the main season varieties.
Turley Farms has reported average or above average yields in most varieties harvested so far, despite the cooler growing season.
Onion Quality
A key factor for export onion products in particular is the quality of product. Turley Farms has reported that the skin quality this season is pleasing and there is a good volume of quality product to send to market.
Despite being a small country, New Zealand is lucky to have a range of micro climates to ensure a staggered harvest of onion products throughout the harvest season. Onion production is concentrated in the northern regions of New Zealand, but the southern Canterbury region is an important region for consistency and continuation of onion supply for our domestic and export markets.
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