But their effort is a gamble as this crop doesn’t thrive well during prolonged dry spell, says an agricultural official in the province.
“Maybe most of the 8,000 hectares of the areas being planted to onion during the usual growing season would be replanted first week of March,” Gregorio Quiñones, coordinator of the high value crops program in the province, said.
“It’s really a gamble but it is understandable. The onion farmers want to recover their losses when their crop was destroyed by Typhoons Lando and Nona last November and December,” Quiñones said.
He said the ideal month for the growth of this crop is December because it needs a few weeks of cool weather for its robust growth and development of the bulbs ideal for the market.
In hot weather condition, Quiñones said, the resulting bulbs of the plant may be smaller and partly deformed.
“There is also the danger of sudden downpour in the month of March and April which can destroy the maturing bulb,” he added.
In the past, the months of February and March are the height of the harvesting of the onion bulbs in the province. This time, only a few of this much sought after spice products are seen being marketed as only a few hundred hectares of the plant that were not affected by the rains and floods.
Nueva Ecija is the acknowledged leader in the growing and production of onion in the country.
As per study conducted in 2013 in the Luzon Cluster of the Philippine Rural Development Project, a flagship program of the Department of Agriculture, Central Luzon harvested 73,991.12 metric tons (mt) or 55 percent of the 134,169.92 mt of onion harvest in the country. Of this harvest in the region, Nueva Ecija turned in a total harvest of 73,854.24 mt, or 99.9%, from 8,161 hectares out of the 8,171 hectares in Central Luzon.
Of the towns and cities in Nueva Ecija which are producing onion bulbs, Bongabon town is considered the “onion basket.” In 2013, the area planted to yellow granex and red creole varieties in this town was 3,044.45 hectares. Its total harvest for both varieties was 39,340.63 metric tons.
Other big producers of onions in Nueva Ecija were Gabaldon (1,444 hectares), Rizal (842), San Jose City (825), Talavera (475), Guimba (468) and Laur (450). Nineteen other towns and cities in the province planted onion in a total of 1,577 hectares that year.
San Jose City planted shallot in 304 hectares while the Science City of Muñoz in 125 and Lupao, 76. Shallots are onions but are milder in taste and odor. They are generally eaten raw.
Average harvest per hectare was 10.3 mt for red creole, 14.6 mt for yellow granex, and 10.41 for shallot, according to a report of the provincial agricultural office in Nueva Ecija.
Incidentally, this average yield was low compared to China’s 22.05 mt and India’s 17 mt per hectare.
“The expenses per hectare as per 2013 study were P93,725 for red creole and P75,525 for yellow grannex, for the materials and for labor, P65,117. For the onion seeds alone, the farmer spent from P56,000 to P70,000 per hectare for the yellow granex,” Quiñones said.
The average net incomes listed were P40,883 per hectare for red creole, P74,655 for yellow granex, and P84,280 for shallot.
“Let’s just pray that nothing untoward will befall upon us this late planting of onion in the province. Otherwise, it will be another big disaster for our onion growers,” Quiñones said.
