Onion is a storage crop and a low-humidity one, which makes it the odd product in our range. Everything else here wants 90 % RH; onion wants 65 to 70 % and will rot at anything higher.
The crop is lifted in August, field-cured for ten to fourteen days until the necks are tight and the skins rustle, then moved into ventilated store at 0 to +2 °C. Cured properly it holds to May. Cured badly it sprouts in January, and there is no fixing it downstream.
Polatlı in Ankara province and Amasya are the two main districts. Yellow is the volume; red is a smaller programme into the Balkans and the Gulf; fresh spring onion is a short April-to-June line that ships green-topped and refrigerated, and behaves nothing like the dry crop.