|
Click to listen to this article
|
Story and photos by Dave Alexander, Publisher
Added value involves piling on extra features that go beyond the standard product offering. When you receive added value, you get that warm, fuzzy feeling that comes from getting something extra that you didn’t account for or have to pay for.
If the new widget you buy on eBay comes with free shipping, that’s added value. If you get a haircut and the barber trims your beard for free, that’s added value. If you advertise in Onion World, you get added value in the digital online issue for no extra charge. If you attend a field day to view onion varieties and also get to see new and edgy technology, that is also added value.
That last example of this typical sales technique is exactly what attendees got when they attended the Seminis Onion Experience+ Field Day event in Payette, Idaho, on Aug. 22, presented by Vegetables by Bayer.
Varieties
On display at the Seminis facility in Payette were the company’s onion varieties and specialty crops such as carrots and peppers, as well as high-tech companies that had no relation to Vegetables by Bayer.
Added value, though cool, is never the main focus, and that was the case at the Onion Experience. The main attraction was new Seminis varieties Crusher, Almanzoro and Hatchet. Richard Navarrete addressed the attendees first, explaining the benefits of these yellows.
“Almanzoro is a full, strict retail onion. It has very nice scale and good scale balance,” Navarrete said.
He went on to explain that storage onions sometimes have heavy skin buildup and may show some black mold through the storage season.
“That’s not what Almanzoro is going to do,” he continued, adding that the storage variety is also adapted to overhead irrigation.
Crusher, launched in 2020, is the variety Navarrete calls the “flagship” for Seminis in the Treasure Valley. It has very high single centers and stores through April.
Seminis breeder Scott Hendricks said Crusher really performed last year and wasn’t bothered at all by the heat. It produced high yields and didn’t come in early despite the high temperatures.
This year, a cold June preceded record high temperatures in Payette. The company’s test plots were also defoliated by a hailstorm. Despite these challenges, the onions in Payette looked fantastic.
‘If things aren’t perfect, it’s still going to make a crop,” Hendricks said of Crusher.
The final new variety also considered by Navarrete as a “flagship” for Seminis is Hatchet. The variety has great size potential, yield and top strength, high single centers and stores very well. It comes in a little later than Crusher.
Pipeline
Hendricks told attendees about new red varieties in the pipeline. Varieties 1608 and 1610 (which matures a little later than 1608) are both onions with low pungency that scored well in consumer taste tests. They will be perfect for salad bar-type markets.
As a company, Seminis is really pushing hard on “bullet centers” that will store well.
“That’s an exciting part of the program. We have combined that long storage-type onion with the heavier skins, and now you can get that in a single-center profile,” Hendricks said.
He adds that many of Seminis’ varieties will require less inputs, especially nitrogen, to produce the same yields, saving growers money while increasing sustainability.
Extras
The added value of this year’s event was provided by the aforementioned specialty crops, high-tech companies Parabug and Carbon Robotics and free tacos for lunch.
Developed by a California farmer, Parabug uses drones to drop beneficial insects onto fields, saving labor. Application can be done on wet fields in wet conditions, in hilly terrain and is much more uniform than hand applications, according to the company.
Carbon Robotics brought its autonomous laser weeder out to Payette and put it through its paces. Though the company isn’t currently selling the driverless unit, it is taking orders for tractor-pulled weeders that use the same artificial intelligence and lasers to target and kill weeds that the robotic unit uses.
Though there was plenty to see at this year’s event, attendees of future Onion Experiences can expect bigger events and even more added value.
“If you thought this year was fun, wait until you see what we do next year!” Navarrete said.
