April 13 2006, 17:13

Transplant onion planting method falls out of use in Odesa oblast

The largest seed suppliers and transplants producers of Odesa oblast have been recently polled; according to the results, this year large onion producers contracted the early onion acreage which is usually produced by the transplant method. This information was provided by Valentina Kotsur, the Agronomist of Odesa office, the Agricultural Marketing Project to "Agrooglyad: Vegetables and Fruits" journal.

The specialist considers the feasibility decrease of early onion production to be the main reason for the acreage contraction. The supply volumes growth has led to the price decrease on this commodity in the recent years. Transplant production is a rather expensive process. The large producers prefer to switch to the direct planting of onion hybrids with application of the precision drills. And, the seed companies offer now the winter onion seeds able to ripen at the same terms as the onion grown from transplants. Winter onion is definitely a less expensive crop. The experience proves that winter onion can stand even this year winter with the reasonable losses. Still, the winter 2005/06 is probably an exclusion. Valentina Kotsur thinks that the large producers will further tend to apply onion transplants less in the next years.

At the same time, medium onion producers extend the application of the transplants method on their 3-5 ha of onion fields, according to the information provided by Dmitriy Chernyak, the AMP Market Information Specialist. It seems strange from the first glance, but the reason is the growing competition among the producers and the decreasing profitability of the traditional varieties production. Planning to have a higher price, the producers partially switch from variety to hybrid onion. In this case the higher cost of planting materials does not let the producers use the traditional planting technologies. Still, many producers can not afford to buy automatic precision drills. The other advantage of the transplant method is lower requirements to the soil, as compared to the direct seed planting method. Small producers often grow the needed quantity of the transplants independently. Judging from the present state of the transplant market in Ukraine, the independent production decreases the production cost much and increases the quality as well.

So, the industrial onion transplants production for sale is hardly a perspective business idea. V. Kotsur thinks this method will still be used, but its share will decrease; only small onion producers will mainly apply transplants.