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Any housewife seeks to grow onions, if there is an opportunity, because no matter what dish you take, everywhere - you can't do without onions, except maybe sweet. It seems that to grow it - a couple of trifles - stuck a seed into the ground and collect a ready crop in a few months. But in reality everything is not so simple. It will rot, then it will dry up, otherwise, in general, someone will eat the bulbs on the vine. Therefore, even experienced gardeners often argue and cannot come to a common opinion about certain features of growing onions.
Especially a lot of controversy is caused by the question of preparing the bulbs for subsequent planting, whether they need to be soaked or not, and if necessary, what to soak the onions in before planting. Of course, such questions usually arise among novice gardeners. After all, those who have been growing onions for a long time have many of their own secrets and tricks that they use depending on the circumstances. This article is an attempt to collect the different techniques used by gardeners and explain them in terms of what the bow itself needs.
What is it for
Before you figure out how and in what you can soak the onion for its further planting, you need to understand why it actually needs to be done. Maybe this is just a tribute to a tradition that has developed over centuries and today there is no point in these procedures?
So, you need to soak the onions before planting:
- So that the bow does not subsequently shoot.
- To accelerate germination, which can be especially important for northern areas with short summers.
- For good future growth and a bountiful harvest.
- To accelerate the ripening of the crop.
- For disinfection or disinfection of onions, that is, for the destruction of all eggs and larvae of pests and spores of fungal diseases.
- For additional saturation with moisture in the first period of growth.
- For additional sorting of onions before planting.
Although, there are probably circumstances in which none of these reasons is relevant. For example, growing onions from their guaranteed healthy and carefully pre-sorted sets in the southern regions with drip irrigation. But these circumstances are very rare, and most gardeners understand that it is easier to prevent problems than to deal with their consequences later.
Now we need to consider all these reasons in more detail.
Shooting treatment
The arrows of the onion - that is, the shoots that bear inflorescences with future seeds, take a lot of energy from the seedlings, while the bulbs themselves are formed of a very small size.
Of these, after sowing, numerous flower arrows will begin to develop. Therefore, the easiest way to avoid shooting an onion is to store it in winter at a temperature not lower than + 18 ° C. This is simple when it comes to onion planting material grown and preserved on our own. But much more often we buy onion sets for planting in stores or markets, and sometimes we do not know at all in what conditions it grew, what diseases it suffered from, how it was harvested and subsequently stored.
What to do in cases when nothing is known about the bow you are buying, but at the same time you do not want it to start shooting? There are fairly reliable methods, known for many hundreds of years and based on the biology of the plant itself, to help stop onion shooting.
- If you still have a lot of time before sowing, then you can simply dry the onion sets indoors for 7-8 days at a temperature of + 20 ° С- + 22 ° С.
- It will be more effective to heat the onion sets for 3-4 days near the stove or heating devices at a temperature of + 30 ° C.
- Before planting, the onion sets can be soaked in hot water (+ 45 ° C- + 50 ° C) for 2-3 hours.
All of these methods are based on heating the bulbs before planting. At the same time, special hormones of temperature stress are produced in the tissues of the bulbs. It is these hormones that are subsequently responsible for blocking the development of flower buds.
Soaking for good growth
In the northern regions, it is especially important that the onion sprouts sooner, so that it develops quickly and well. Accordingly, it is advisable to accelerate the ripening of the crop by at least a few weeks, because the weather in August can already be very unpredictable and it is necessary to complete the harvesting and drying of onions before the onset of inclement and cold weather.
There are several ways to accelerate the emergence of seedlings and ripening of the onion crop:
- Onion sets are poured into flat boxes and kept in a warm place, not lower than + 22 ° C, and preferably in the sun about three weeks before planting. Such pre-sowing vernalization can accelerate the emergence of seedlings by 4-5 days, and the crop as a whole will ripen as a result several weeks earlier.
- Onion sets are cut to the shoulders, without touching the sprout, and soaked in any solution of nutrients (manure, humates or saltpeter) for about 12-18 hours.
- After cutting the onion, it is soaked for half an hour in Epin-Extra solution. This procedure helps to accelerate the emergence of seedlings. If the temperature of the solution is taken around + 40 ° C + 50 ° C, then additionally this soaking will serve to disinfect the bulbs.
Disinfection of bulbs
Traditionally, for the disinfection of onion sets, as well as when growing onions on a feather, they used soaking the bulbs in potassium permanganate. Now there are many new means, more effective, nevertheless, some old methods of disinfection also show themselves quite well to this day.
The disinfection of the bulbs, of course, can not be carried out if you are 100% confident in your planting material. But more often than not, almost no one can give such a guarantee, since the eggs of many pests, such as thrips or onion flies, are completely invisible to the eye, and the presence of spores of fungal diseases does not affect the appearance of the bulbs in any way.
The oldest and time-tested method of disinfecting onion sets, in addition to soaking in potassium permanganate, is soaking it in a saturated salt solution. To do this, 1 kg of salt is dissolved in 5 liters of water until completely saturated. Prepared onions are soaked in this solution for two hours. What is the preparation? It is necessary to carefully cut off the upper neck with a sharp knife, without affecting the sprouts.
If the tip is not cut off, the disinfection will only affect the bottom of the bulb; otherwise, the saline solution can penetrate between the scales and disinfect the entire bulb. It is very important, after soaking, to thoroughly rinse the onion from salt, changing the water several times.
If, before planting, you simply soak the onion set in hot water (+ 45 ° C- + 50 ° C) for 10-15 minutes, the disinfection effect will be exactly the same as from soaking in a saline solution. And in fact, and in another case, no special preparations are required, choose what is easier for you: heat the water or use salt.
All other methods involve the use of special preparations for soaking onions, and they are also quite effective.
- In potassium permanganate. In ordinary cold water, so many potassium permanganate crystals dissolve to produce a bright pink color. The onion is soaked in the resulting solution for 15-20 minutes.
- In copper sulfate. In 10 liters of cold water, 30 grams of copper sulfate is dissolved. The onion is soaked in the solution for 30 minutes.
- In the preparation "Maxim". To prepare a solution in two liters of water, dilute 4 ml of the drug and soak the onion in it for half an hour.
After all treatments do not forget to rinse the onion sets in clean water and you can start planting. To make it easier to plant, it is possible to dry the onion after soaking at a temperature of + 20 ° C - + 22 ° C.
Additional sorting
You can do the opposite, after rinsing, keep the bulbs moist for another 8-10 hours in a warm place. To do this, they are placed in plastic bags or in a bucket under the lid. As a result of this procedure, small roots appear on the bottoms of the onions - so they will help to carry out additional sorting of the bulbs before planting.
If the onion roots have sprouted around the entire perimeter of the bottom, then it is ideal for growing on a turnip.
If the roots hatch only partially, half, then the bulb will most likely go to the arrow and can only be used for planting on greens.
From the above, it is clear that many soaking methods can be combined for best results. Choose what you need specifically, in your circumstances, and get an excellent harvest of onions.
