Crop Services
National Onion Labs Inc. and National Onion Labs Australia employ agronomists, field scouts, our own in-house statistician and a full flavor laboratory to provide our clients with timely, hands-on advice based upon scientifically validated and consistent methodologies, actual field observations and frequent client feedback.
Your Soil and Region
National Onion Labs, Inc. has one of the world’s most consistently analyzed, comprehensive and historical data banks of soil profiles specific to horticultural growing regions within the USA, Mexico and Peru. We are also now creating a similar data bank for Australia that includes parts of South Australia and Queensland to date. This background helps provide us with the ‘benefit of hindsight’ to estimate likely regional impacts observed previously that may be related to soil-type, water quality, variety-dependent, disease susceptibility and/or weather related. This advice can be crucial at pre-plant time – particularly when growers are selecting varieties and fertilizer programs.
Your Agronomy
NOL’s Crop Services team can also provide pre-plant, at harvest or a full 12 month customized agronomic service depending on your needs and budget. That means you can have an ‘independent’ and completely confidential consultant to discuss your own unique issues to throughout the season. Because we facilitate all our agronomic advice on a completely confidential basis with a broad range of clients, you gain the benefit of a consultant with a broad knowledge of situations but for a fraction of the cost of a full-time agronomist! We typically assist on topics that include:
- Early plant stand establishment
- Seasonal nutrition and fertilizer advice
- General crop inspection activities
- Yield improvement
- GPS located point soil analysis (generally at pre-plant and harvest time)
- GPS Farm mapping
- Irrigation recommendations
- Pest, Disease and Weed management recommendations
- Harvest Management Strategies
Your Postharvest Quality
NOL can also help to examine pack-out quality and storability that might include assessing for:
- flavor changes (eg. onion pungency, sugar/brix content, pigments/colors and antioxidants)
- texture development
- disease/rot susceptibility
- sizing issues
- shrinkage
- external skin damage
We generally look at these issues in light of the agronomic observations made throughout that season, to best determine the most appropriate agronomic recommendations for your future crop and harvest management processes. We want your product to be of the highest quality for as long as your product is marketed for.
See Analytical Services and Certification Services.