Project summary

Enhancing salad onion quality and yields through understanding in-field variation

Crop uniformity is key to vegetable growers for achieving maximal marketable yields. Unlike grain crops, which are bulked together at harvest, field vegetables are often marketed as either individual whole plants or components of plants (e.g. lettuce heads, carrot roots, Broccoli florets), which must meet strict quality specifications demanded by retailers and consumers. As such, increasing crop variability results in fewer plants meeting the necessary quality criteria thereby reducing marketable yields and creating greater levels of waste.

High levels of crop variability are being seen within commercial salad onion crops (also commonly known as spring onions and scallions). Salad onion plants are seen to vary in size and growth leading to highly uneven crops at harvest. The precise causes of this variability however has yet to be identified and continues to pose an important problem for growers.

Working in partnership with G’s Growers, one of Europe’s largest vegetable and salad suppliers, this project aims to increase our knowledge of how various factors influence salad onion growth and development in order to identify the primary causes of crop variation in commercial production. It is hoped this will enhanced understanding will provide possible opportunities for growers to implement changes that will facilitate maximal crop yields, whilst also minimising inputs and waste.

Examples of variation within commercial salad onion crops