Rules for processing onion sets before planting
Since the beginning of the annual friendly competition with neighbors in the garden, many are inspired by the confidence that the onion will grow large today. For this, a lunar calendar is purchased, a suitable planting day is determined, but among other things, it is necessary to refresh the theory on the topic of processing onion sets before planting.
Processing onion sets before planting
Secrets of planting onions
In an amicable way, it should be autumn and include:
- a correctly selected site for future planting (the same place cannot be used: useful substances have already been "withdrawn", and characteristic diseases have frozen in anticipation of their "victims");
- introduction of deoxidizers for digging, for example, ash or dolomite flour (you need to achieve a neutral soil reaction, pH = 6.4-6.7: determined using litmus paper);
- sowing siderates (rye, oats, mustard) is an optional, but very useful method of improving the land in the garden;
- the planting material itself, sevok, must be stored in a room where the temperature regime is correctly selected (2.3 ° C).
It should be remembered that this vegetable does not tolerate stagnant water, prefers loamy or sandy loam soil. If in the spring it is planned to plant onions in this area, then it is strongly not recommended to apply fresh manure as fertilizer during the autumn digging. The soil for planting seedlings should warm up to 12 ° C at a depth of 10 cm.
There are 900 species of onion on the planet, 228 of them are vegetables. At the same time, it should be well understood that the choice must be made competently, giving preference to zoned varieties. This is the guarantee of a rich harvest. It is impossible to get a large southern variety onion by planting it in the north and vice versa. It's all about the length of daylight hours, to which the onion reacts more strongly than to fluctuations in weather conditions.
With proper onion storage, there is every reason to believe that the small fraction of the seed will not go into the arrow (this is the so-called wild oat, it has an onion with a diameter of 0.5-0.7 cm), therefore, the overwintered planting material must be sorted by size, that is, broken into small and large fractions, taking this into account when planting. The most suitable onion is considered to be from 0.8 to 2.2 cm in size, the supply of nutrients in it is ideally calculated in order for a full-fledged onion to grow.
When sorting the dried onions, the spoiled ones are removed. Homemade or store bought sevok should be processed before planting (except for the products of the Dutch companies BROER B. V. and TRiUMFUS ORION PRODUCTS, this planting material has already been specially prepared).
Preparing for planting onions
You need to process the onion before planting for:
- protection against pests;
- disinfection;
- stimulating the start of a successful growing season.
The main enemy of this vegetable is the onion fly; of the diseases, the most common are downy mildew and downy mildew; the harvest may also suffer due to shooting. There are a number of measures that can be applied to prevent the occurrence of all these negative factors. Presowing processing of onion sets consists mainly of warming it up and soaking it in various solutions.It can be just hot water or water with potassium permanganate, or salt, or ash, or soda, or vitriol, or with some kind of growth stimulant. The main thing is not to overdo it, to withstand all norms and regimes.
Onion pests and how to deal with them
The seedlings prepared for planting can be infested with pest larvae. Preventive treatment in this case is a mandatory measure. Pre-soaking in manganese (1 g per 1 liter of water for 20-25 minutes) or in hot water (50 °, soak for 10-15 minutes) will help to improve the onion. From nematode larvae, you can treat the onions with salt (soak 3 cups of salt in a bucket of water for 24 hours).
Most often, onions are sick with peronosporosis and downy mildew (an onion feather helps to notice the disease). The most common measure to defeat a plant disease is to treat it with a medicinal preparation. You can spray with copper sulfate, this is a broad-spectrum fungicide, and the gardener knows how blue solution helps in the fight against pathogens both in the garden and in the beds. The best solution for the prevention of onion diseases is to treat it with CuSO4 before planting. Copper sulphate can be effectively watered in the area that is allotted for the onion (for 10 liters of 1 tbsp. L. Powder).
All this fuss with sevka should begin 20-25 days before planting. The first step is to organize the heat, that is, you can simply bring the onion into a room where the temperature is more than 17 ° C. The day before landing, you need to warm it up on the battery. All these measures will reduce shooting and accelerate seed germination. In case of force majeure, you can apply soaking in hot water (50 ° C, 10 minutes), then place the onion in cold water, dry it and keep it in a damp burlap until disembarking.
To cut off or is it better not? A good owner, after warming up the sevka for three weeks, will remove excess husk from it, once again inspect the onions, reject substandard ones, and he will not be too lazy to cut off the dry neck. This must be done carefully so as not to damage the growth point. Whether or not to trim the onion sets before planting is the master's business.
Expert advice
Experts recommend keeping the planting material in a solution of any growth stimulant (for example, "Zircon"). This promotes the awakening of the root system and the beginning of development. After such a procedure, treatment with "Fitosporin" is applied (the instructions for preparing a solution for soaking the planting material should be followed exactly). This biological product fights pathogens, and then it is not necessary to process it with copper sulfate.
The listed complex of agrotechnical measures is laborious, but it is the key to a successful harvest. Let China and India take the first place in the world in onion production (70 million tons), and by the amount of consumption per capita - by the inhabitants of Libya (more than 33 kg per year), it is also important for the inhabitants of our country to grow healthy, beautiful onions, to be able to preserve them. until the new harvest, and in the spring, repeat all over again. The process is like a small battle. It was not for nothing that in the Middle Ages, French knights gave as many as 8 bulbs to their enemies Saracens in exchange for one prisoner!