Fall is settling in to many parts of the U.S. and that is good for storage potato and onion shipments. Here’s a look at the most active shipping areas.
Storage onions from around the country are being shipped, although the heaviest volume is coming from Washington, Oregon and Idaho.
Leading the nation in dry onion shipments is Washington state’s Columbia Basin. It is averaging about 875 truck loads per week. Coming in a close second are onion shipments out of western Idaho and Malheur County, Oregon, amount to a little over 800 loads weekly. From here volume is significantly less from other areas.
Ranking third are sweet onion imports from Peru. An equivalent of nearly 150 truck loads are arriving weekly by boat. However, keep in mind these arrivals are scattered among a few different ports along the East Coast. Placing fourth in volume are storage onions from upstate New York led by Orange County, although some volume is scattered from the central and western portions of the state. Use some caution as some quality problems are being reported.
Finally, there is some very light volume coming out of the Bakersfield are of Southern California.
Columbia Basin potatoes and onions – grossing $3500 to Chicago.
Potato Shipments
Potato shipments, mostly from the Northwestern U.S. and the central U.S. are mostly moving in steady volume now. As usual, Idaho easily leads the volume. It is moving nearly 1600 truck load equivalents weekly, mostly from the Twin Falls, Burley areas. Keep in mind, up to about 40 percent of this volume may be moving by rail. Two separate shipping areas have similar potato right now. Colorado’s San Luis Valley, as well as Washington’s Columbia Basin and the adjacent Umatillia Basin of Oregon are averaging about 675 truck loads weekly.
A number of other potato shipments are available from other parts of the nation, but in very light volume. Among those are Western Texas (Hereford) and Eastern New Mexico; Northwest Washington, the Red River Valley of North Dakota and Minnesota, Nebraska, Michigan, Southern California, Long Island, NY and the Klamath Basin of Northern California and Southern Oregon.
Idaho potato shipments – grossing about $5000 to New York City.
Colorado potato loadings – grossing about $2900 to Atlanta.
Wisconsin potato shipments – grossing about $950 to Chicago.