How to grow onions in risky farming areas

In areas with a short summer period (Siberia, the Urals, the Far East), the question becomes relevant: how to grow onions. Most often, onion cultivation here is based on sowing seeds. In the first year, nigella seedlings are grown, which serve as planting material for commercial turnip production during the next growing season.

To obtain mature, conditioned bulbs in one growing season, conditions are needed for the emergence of early shoots and faster leaf growth in the first half of the growing season.

How to grow onions in risky farming areas

It is best to have light, fertile soils for onions. In the fall, add humus (4-5 kg ​​per square meter) to the site, dig up the soil, and thoroughly clean it of weeds.

In the spring, after the soil has dried, you need to loosen it with a rake and you can start sowing. Before this, the seeds need to be kept in a damp cloth for 25-30 hours for the roots to peck. The seeds are covered in the furrows with a 1.5 cm layer of soil and covered with film or thick paper, which must be removed when seedlings appear.

Care comes down to watering, loosening the soil and weeding. Lodging of leaves is a sign of the beginning of ripening of the bulbs.

If you use crop thickening method, the supply of nutrients to the bulb in the second half of the growing season will slow down, as a result of which the leaves will turn out to be thinner, and new ones will not form at all. At the same time, the neck of the onion will become soft, the feather will fall, turn yellow and dry out. This will mean that the bulbs are ripe.