Growing Onions Through A Set

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

← Read the previous part "Preparing the soil for planting onions"

Agrotechnology of growing onions in a biennial culture

Growing onion sets

It is better to use first class seeds for sowing, since their field germination is very low. They have a dense, poorly permeable shell, therefore, to accelerate seedlings, they are soaked before sowing for 14-24 hours, preferably in warm running water, or change it 2-3 times.

When sowing wet seeds into moist soil, seedlings appear on the 7-8th day, dry seeds germinate in 2-3 weeks. To increase field germination and accelerate the development of plants, you can make a bubbling of seeds - while soaking, air through them using an aquarium compressor. You can soak them in a solution of microfertilizers: 0.25% MgCl3 solution, + K2HPO4 (12-24 hours), 0.02% Al2 (SO4) 3 + H3BO3 (day) or 1% KMnO4 solution.

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Soaking seeds in a solution of heteroauxin (50 mg / l) increases their germination capacity, increases the yield by 0.4 kg / m² in comparison with dry seeds. Soaking is complete when the seeds are baked. You can soak them until sprouts up to 2 mm long appear, but such seeds must be sown in a liquid carrier.

Sowing onion seeds should be as early as possible - as soon as the soil is ripe. When sowing early, plants make good use of soil moisture and a long day. This contributes to the appearance of the required number of leaves, which subsequently makes it possible to form a well-ripened seed bulb. Ridges for early sowing can be prepared in the fall, and in spring they must be well loosened.

The rows on the ridge are placed with a distance of 15-20 cm between them. The distance between the rows can be reduced to 10 cm, but this will complicate the care of the plants. It is desirable to orient them from north to south. With this arrangement, the plants will be evenly illuminated by the sun and will shade each other less.

6-10 g of first class seeds are sown on one square meter. With such a thickened sowing, the plants find themselves in extreme lighting conditions, water and nutrient supply, and, having formed 5-7 leaves, form a bulb that ripens in the conditions of North-West Russia. When sowing with spiked seeds, the soil should be moist, the furrows should be watered before sowing. When sowing such seeds in a stream of liquid, even large roots are not damaged, and better contact of the seeds with the soil is ensured. In the conditions of amateur vegetable growing for sowing, you can adapt a small watering can or a teapot without a strainer.

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If it is not possible to water before sowing seeds or the soil tends to dry out, it is advisable to sow dry seeds. The sowing depth is very important. With shallow seeding (less than 1 cm), some of the seeds are on the surface, and some fall into the top dry layer of soil and do not emerge. The optimum sowing depth of onion seeds is 1.5-2.0 cm. The sown seeds are sealed first with moist and then dry soil, tamped slightly with a special board to draw moisture to the seeds, and mulch with humus or peat no more than 1 thick 5 cm.

You can cover the onion crops with plastic wrap, which should be removed when the first shoots appear, or with lutrasil (spandbond). Lutrasil can be left in the garden for as long as you like. It is lightweight, has great light, air and water permeability. As the onion grows, the film needs to be lifted from time to time. It should be noted that this material helps protect onion plants from pests, since they cannot lay eggs on plants during the flight.

Onions grow slowly in the first month after sowing. It is a poor competitor to weeds that oppress plants, retard their growth and ripening of bulbs. Under the influence of weeds, onion productivity is reduced by more than 4 times. It is necessary to do systematic loosening of the soil, since the onion does not tolerate the soil crust and sharply reduces the yield. Loosening should be shallow (4-5 cm) so as not to damage the root system. Over the summer, at least 4-5 loosening is carried out.

The first is done before germination. In order not to damage the onion plants in rows, about 1% of the seeds of fast-emerging crops are mixed with its seeds during sowing: lettuce, radish, Chinese cabbage and others. Their plants are harvested after the emergence of onions. These are the so-called lighthouse cultures. Loosening the soil not only destroys the soil crust, but also destroys weeds in the aisles, and also destroys the upper part of the smallest soil capillaries, through which moisture rises from great depths and evaporates. No wonder loosening is called "dry irrigation".

With a lack of moisture, very small bulbs are formed, so in case of dry weather, the plants are periodically watered. Onions especially need moisture in the first 70-80 days of growth. After watering, when the soil dries up a little, it must be loosened.

With a good filling of the soil with fertilizers, onion sowing for sowing does not need additional fertilizing. Thinning is also not required, since the high density of crops accelerates the ripening of the seedlings.

They start harvesting as soon as the bulbs are formed and the leaves begin to lodge. It is impossible to be late with harvesting, since the seedlings not harvested on time in rainy weather can move into secondary growth and will be poorly stored in the future. In rainy years, the seedlings are harvested without waiting for the leaves to lodge, but in the presence of a formed bulb. At the same time, nutrients from the leaves gradually pass into the bulb, and it ripens. In dry, sunny weather, the seedlings are poured in with a scoop or spatula, plants are selected from the soil and laid out in the garden with roots in one direction, leaves in the other. During air drying, under the influence of sunlight, the set dries better, is ripened and disinfected from pathogenic bacteria and fungi.

From time to time, the seedlings need to be agitated. In rainy weather, onions are dried in a barn, in an attic or in another closed, well-ventilated area. The sevok should be well dried, and the neck should be tightly covered with scales. Sevok is ready for storage if it is dry (rustles to the touch), the neck is thin and the bulb is covered with dry, dense scales. The leaves are crushed with their hands, sifted to clear the remains of the earth, and undamaged, healthy bulbs are taken for storage.

For growing on a turnip, bulbs with a diameter of 1-3 cm are selected. Small (less than 1 cm in diameter) bulbs can be planted before winter, since they can dry out during storage, and large ones (more than 3 cm) can be used for growing green onions. So that the seed, selected for seeds, does not shoot, it is stored at a temperature of + 18 … + 20 ° C, small (up to 1 cm in diameter) does not form an arrow at any temperature. Well-dried, healthy sets can be stored until spring without bulkheads.

Subject to agricultural techniques, up to 2 kg of onion sets can be obtained from 1 m².

Growing turnip onions

Sevok is sorted out before planting. If in the previous year during cultivation the plants were affected by downy mildew, before planting, it must be warmed up for 8 hours at a temperature of 40-42 ° C for disinfection. The same is done with sets of unknown origin.

Sevok is planted in warm soil. Planting too early causes shooing of the plants; later planting reduces the yield. In the North-West of Russia, the optimal time for planting seedlings is mid-May. To speed up the regrowth, the seedlings can be cut on shoulders, soaked in a solution of micronutrient fertilizers (in a 1% solution of potassium permanganate or 0.1% solution of copper sulfate) for 12-24 hours. For the same purpose, you can use diluted slurry (1: 6).

Before planting, the soil must be well loosened so that the bulbs can easily enter it, otherwise, as they grow back, they will begin to rise on the roots. On the surface of the ridge, grooves are drawn, denoting the rows, and the sevka bulbs are planted in them. 3-5 lines are placed on the bed with a distance of about 20 cm between them. The distance between the bulbs in a row depends on their size and variety. Onion sets of small-breeding varieties: Mstersky, Danilovsky, Strigunovsky, etc. are planted at a distance of 8-10 cm from each other, medium- and small-breeding varieties: Arzamassky, Bessonovsky, Rostovsky - 10-12 cm. Larger onions are planted less often. The planting depth is made such that the seed is in a moist soil layer and is compressed by it.

At the beginning of leaf regrowth, plants are given nitrogen-potassium fertilizing at the rate of 10 g of ammonium nitrate and 15 g of potassium chloride per 1m². If, after regrowth, the plants form arrows, they must be removed. After breaking out the arrows, the plants are fed with nitrogen-potassium fertilizers, which contribute to the more intensive development of the near-arrow bud, and the plant forms a normal bulb. In some years, arrows appear later. In this case, after their removal, a "stump" is formed in the middle of the bulb from the arrow. Such bulbs are not suitable for storage. Plants that form arrows, it makes sense to remove as long as the leaves are green, tender, and use for food.

At the beginning of the formation of the bulb, a second feeding of plants with phosphorus-potassium fertilizers is done: 10-15 g of potassium chloride and 15-20 g of superphosphate are applied per 1m². This dressing accelerates the formation and maturation of the bulbs. Fertilizers in wet soil are applied dry before loosening. If there is not enough moisture in the soil, they are dissolved in water. The specified amount of fertilizer is diluted in a bucket of water and poured onto 1m².

After liquid feeding, a bucket of clean water is poured onto the plants so that there are no burns, then the soil is loosened. During the entire growing period, it is necessary to maintain the topsoil at a depth of 4-5 cm in a loose state. This improves the conditions for air and soil nutrition and retains moisture. During loosening, up to 70-90% of weeds are destroyed. Usually up to 4-5 loosening is carried out over the summer. It should be remembered that on compacted soil, onions drastically reduce the yield and form small bulbs.

With the beginning of the lodging of the leaves, when the bulbs have formed and acquired the color characteristic of the variety, they begin to harvest the onions. The bulbs are carefully selected from the ground, after digging with a scoop. When the bulbs are pulled out of the soil, the bottom sometimes breaks out. Such bulbs rot during storage. In good weather, onions can be left to dry in the garden; in damp weather they are dried in well-ventilated, closed rooms.

Some amateurs, to speed up the lodging of leaves, roll them or press them to the ground. In no case should this be done, since such a technique only harms the crop. The growth of leaves continues, and damage to the plants contributes to the penetration of cervical rot pathogens into the bulb. To accelerate ripening, it is advisable to shake off the soil from the bulbs, partially exposing the roots. This method has long been used by gardeners in the North-West of Russia.

When growing onions, it is not recommended to pluck the leaves from the plants. This leads to a decrease in the yield and, facilitating the penetration of pathogens, reduces the keeping quality of the bulbs in winter.

Continue reading "Growing onions from seeds" →

All parts of the article "Growing onions in the North-West region"

• Part 1. Biological characteristics of onions
• Part 2. Interesting varieties of onions
• Part 3. Preparing the soil for planting onions
• Part 4. Growing onions through the set
• Part 5. Growing onions from seeds
• Part 6. Vegetative propagation of onions
• Part 7. Growing green onions