Onion forum: from cultivation to storage and sales
During the Onion forum, speakers representing the government, branch organizations, and the business community shared their knowledge about and vision of onion cultivation. ENGIE Refrigeration also did, specifically about drying and storing onions independently from the outside air.
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The Onion forum was organized by the AMI and the 'Rheinische Agricultural Publishing House'. For this meeting, more than 100 onion growers traveled to Niedersachsen, one of the most important centers for onion cultivation in Germany.
The programme was versatile and dealt with developments in the market and specific technological developments. One of those developments is drying and storing onions independently of the outside air, also known as condensation drying. During this presentation, Henk Tebben, a specialist in preserving agricultural products at ENGIE Refrigeration, discussed the differences between current storage technology with the use of outside air and mechanical storage that eliminates the outside air. Apparently, this subject triggered a lot, because the audience had a lot of questions and showed a lot of interest in this technology.
- Condensation drying in short:
- Dry, heat and store onions with a heat pump installation. No more gas heaters or shutters needed.
- Optimal conditions in the storage cells in terms of temperature, humidity, and CO2. You no longer depend on the weather conditions.
- Controllable on smartphones, tablets, and PC.
The advantages:
- Drying onions twice as fast
- Quality of onions is better preserved
- Energy neutral
- Substantially higher yield
- Use of residual heat
- ROI < 3 years
Read more about condensation drying or read the reference of Custers’ Farm.
See the information booklet (in German) for the complete programme, including a summary of each presentation on the Onion forum.