Short Day Onion Sets

Question from Kenny:
Pat My last reply about what I know on the subject got a little long and skinny and hard to read. It’s time to let it rest a while. At least until more solid facts on wether the commercial onion industry is finding it economically practical to grow large crops of Large Sweet Short Day Onions from “Sets”

I have your snail mail address so I can send you a 100 or so Sweet Short Day sets as soon as I can get my hands on them this fall.  I would like to forward to you any interesting email communication I recieved or may recieve from the Rietvelds. At this point in time what I know as fact is they grow the short day sets in northern Indiana and Illinois and sell them to Southern state and California commercial short day onion growers to plant and harvest.  Have you had time to visit www.dutchvalleygrowers.com?  I have enjoyed sharing what little I know about growing onions.

Answer from Pat:
Thanks so much Kenny! Yes, I did look up the Dutch Valley Growers, as you suggested and enjoyed seeing the range of items they grow. Don’t send me too many sets since I don’t have a lot of space these days, but thank you very much and I can share with others so we can learn that way. Meanwhile, I learned a lot from you!

About 30 years ago or maybe more it was a retired agriculturist here who told me the sweet onions grown commercially here and in Hawaii were transplanted from bare-roots out of prior seedbeds. He was the one who explained the great importance of seeding during the first 11 days of November. Otherwise I would never have known of that. The day length for strawberries also involves those same eleven days for planting in order to promote fruiting instead of vegetative growth. The same guy is the one who said you don’t have sets of short day onions and explained why.

I got many of the facts in my book directly from growers who were good enough to see I wanted to help the home gardeners by finding and spreading the tricks of the trade known to agriculturists. This research goes way back to the mid eighties when I had my regularly-scheduled TV show here.

By the way one thing I wanted to say to you was that the way to grow pearl onions (for eating, not for sets) though I have never done it myself is to grow the variety Crystal Wax from seeds and crowd the plants which is how you got your sets.