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How to prevent onion bolting and thereby increase the yield
27.02.2023 06:20
Updated: 14.04.2023 08:18
To prevent onion crops from bolting, use simple and accessible recommendations.
Proper storage of onion sets in winter
To do this, you need to create certain conditions and methods for storage. With a warm method, in a living space, the sets are stored at a temperature of 20 degrees and 70% humidity. But in such conditions, the small fraction of the sets dries out very quickly.
The most suitable storage conditions for onion sets are cold storage. The room temperature should be below -3 °C, and the relative air humidity should be at least 90%.
The combined method requires creating warm storage conditions in the autumn and spring periods, and cold conditions in the winter.
But with this method, sudden changes in temperature and high air humidity cannot be allowed.
Preparation of seed material
The onion sets need to be dried well. To do this, the temperature in the room where they are stored is raised to 20 °C for 2-3 weeks, then the temperature is set to 25 °C for 8 hours, slowly raising it to 40 °C.
There is also a faster method: soak the onions for 10-15 minutes in hot water, then in cold water, and then you can sow them directly into the ground.
Correct selection of seed onions
Onions up to 3 cm in size often produce shoots, so it is better to select sets 1-2.5 cm in size. When sowing onions in winter, their size should be 1 cm, such sets do not produce shoots if the rules or storage conditions are violated.
Compliance with the sowing period
Onions should be planted when the temperature is at least 15 °C and the soil warms up to 12 °C and above. This happens at the end of April and the beginning of May. If you plant onions later, the harvest will be small, and if you plant them in cold soil, bolting will be unavoidable.
Regular watering
Due to lack of moisture, onions may begin to bolt. In spring, water at least 1-2 times a week, the water should be warm. At the beginning of July, the watering regime continues as before, but when hot weather sets in, watering should be doubled.
In order for the onion to ripen and be stored well, watering should be stopped 14 days before harvesting. If something could not be done in time and the arrows still appeared, they are simply broken off, but until the harvest itself, this procedure will have to be done regularly.
