Why Short Day Onions Do Not Make Sets
Question: I would like to ask you about a couple of things you mentioned in your talk last night – one was about there being no such thing as short-day onion sets. I have purchased what I understand ARE just such a thing. Here is one source:
<a href="Q: I would like to ask you about a couple of things you mentioned in your talk last night – one was about there being no such thing as short-day onion sets. I have purchased what I understand ARE just such a thing. Here is one source: http://www.dixondalefarms.com/category/short_day_onions and Green Thumb in San Marcos, who is good about providing seasonal/geographic appropriate plants sells the bunches, too. I have planted them using the trench method that Dixondale recommends and everything looks very good so far!
Answer: Thank you for sending me the link to a nursery that carries bareroot plants of short-day onions. I too have purchased these but they are not sets, they are bare-root onions, (also sometimes called bareroot transplants.) Onions are biennial plants which means they take two years from seed to flower after which they die. However, there exists no wild plant exactly like a cultivated onion and this is because these plants have adapted over thousands of years to being cultivated by humans. Thus they also have some unique characteristics. Onions are a complicated cool-season crop and often misunderstood, but I explain them in detail on pages 386 to 389 of my book. Onions are sensitive to day-length and temperature and they come in long-daylength, medium-daylength, and short-daylength varieties. In order to grow a globe onion it’s important for gardeners know which varieties are adapted to their area. Gardeners who live in cold-winter climates in northern latitudes should plant sets of long-day onions. Gardeners in the central latitudes of USA such as the California Central Valley should grow medium day-length onions. Gardeners in southern latitudes and warm-winter climates such as ours need to plant short-day onions. As I stated last night, sets of short-day onions cannot be purchased and the reason is, it is impossible for a short-day onion to make a set. Short-day onions are subtropical plants that continue to grow throughout winter and never go totally dormant. In order to make a set, an onion must go totally dormant as do long-day and medium-day onions that are adapted to cold-winter climates. Last night I said that in order to grow a globe onion here we must choose a short day variety such as Grano or Granex (or others mentioned in my book) and plant seeds of short-day onions in early November, later transplanting them at the correct spacing in a different row in January. Or alternatively if we forgot to plant them from seeds we should purchase short-day onions as bareroot transplants from local nurseries. (I neglected to mention catalogues. Thanks for mentioning catalogues as an additional source.) Unfortunately, since I was speaking on warm-season crops I didn’t have time to go into onions in great depth. Your excellent question helps me to do this now. All we need do is define terms: Onion sets are small (usually 1-inch diameter) round bulbs of long-day or medium day-length onions covered with a brown or white papery coat, according to variety. Unlike short-day onions, long-day and medium-daylength onions go completely dormant in winter of their first season of growth. They die to the ground in late summer or fall leaving a small bulb called a "set". Onion sets have no leaves or roots attached. To create onion sets, growers plant seeds of long-day or medium-day onions in fields in spring and harvest the sets in late summer or early fall after all foliage has dried off and died. After harvesting the sets, they pack them in string bags or large sacks for sale to farmers and gardeners throughout the world. Onion sets keep without refrigeration for 6 or 7 months through the winter months until the following spring when farmers or gardeners plant them in fields or gardens for summer or fall harvest as full-grown globe onions that are good keepers in winter. But these sets will not make globe onions in Mediterranean climates nearer the equator, such as Southern California because they are the wrong varieties to make a globe onion here. In Southern California and other southern states and similar latitudes throughout the world, including Hawaii, plant sets when you want to grow scallions only since they won’t make a proper globe onion because of lack of the correct day-length during the growing season. Bareroot onions are plants of short-day varieties that were planted from seeds in fall and dug up when the weather got cold, but before there has been any frost. After digging up the plants, growers remove all the earth from their roots leaving the roots and the green leaves attached. They tie the bare-rooted plants together in bundles with roots and green tops left on them and they keep them cold or under refrigeration, but without freezing, until it’s time to ship them to nurseries ahead of our January bareroot season. These bareroot, short-day onions, such as you purchased, do not have a bulb. Instead, they have long narrow shape, similar to green onions, with no bulbous shape at the bottom. Local gardeners can purchase these bareroot transplants in nurseries in warm-winter climates in January. It’s important to plant them as soon as you purchase them. Unlike onion sets, they don’t keep long. I hope this clears up the confusion and am glad your question gave me the chance to explain.” target=”_blank”>http://www.dixondalefarms.com/category/short_day_onions
and Green Thumb in San Marcos, who is good about providing seasonal/geographic appropriate plants sells the bunches, too. I have planted them using the trench method that Dixondale recommends and everything looks very good so far!
A: Thank you for sending me the link to a nursery that carries bareroot plants of short-day onions. I too have purchased these but they are not sets, they are bare-root onions, (also sometimes called bareroot transplants.) Onions are biennial plants which means they take two years from seed to flower after which they die. However, there exists no wild plant exactly like a cultivated onion and this is because these plants have adapted over thousands of years to being cultivated by humans. Thus they also have some unique characteristics. Onions are a complicated cool-season crop and often misunderstood, but I explain them in detail on pages 386 to 389 of my book.
Onions are sensitive to day-length and temperature and they come in long-daylength, medium-daylength, and short-daylength varieties. In order to grow a globe onion it’s important for gardeners know which varieties are adapted to their area. Gardeners who live in cold-winter climates in northern latitudes should plant sets of long-day onions. Gardeners in the central latitudes of USA such as the California Central Valley should grow medium day-length onions. Gardeners in southern latitudes and warm-winter climates such as ours need to plant short-day onions. As I stated last night, sets of short-day onions cannot be purchased and the reason is, it is impossible for a short-day onion to make a set. Short-day onions are subtropical plants that continue to grow throughout winter and never go totally dormant. In order to make a set, an onion must go totally dormant as do long-day and medium-day onions that are adapted to cold-winter climates.
Last night I said that in order to grow a globe onion here we must choose a short day variety such as Grano or Granex (or others mentioned in my book) and plant seeds of short-day onions in early November, later transplanting them at the correct spacing in a different row in January. Or alternatively if we forgot to plant them from seeds we should purchase short-day onions as bareroot transplants from local nurseries. (I neglected to mention catalogues. Thanks for mentioning catalogues as an additional source.) Unfortunately, since I was speaking on warm-season crops I didn’t have time to go into onions in great depth. Your excellent question helps me to do this now. All we need do is define terms:
Onion sets are small (usually 1-inch diameter) round bulbs of long-day or medium day-length onions covered with a brown or white papery coat, according to variety. Unlike short-day onions, long-day and medium-daylength onions go completely dormant in winter of their first season of growth. They die to the ground in late summer or fall leaving a small bulb called a “set”. Onion sets have no leaves or roots attached. To create onion sets, growers plant seeds of long-day or medium-day onions in fields in spring and harvest the sets in late summer or early fall after all foliage has dried off and died. After harvesting the sets, they pack them in string bags or large sacks for sale to farmers and gardeners throughout the world. Onion sets keep without refrigeration for 6 or 7 months through the winter months until the following spring when farmers or gardeners plant them in fields or gardens for summer or fall harvest as full-grown globe onions that are good keepers in winter. But these sets will not make globe onions in Mediterranean climates nearer the equator, such as Southern California because they are the wrong varieties to make a globe onion here. In Southern California and other southern states and similar latitudes throughout the world, including Hawaii, plant sets when you want to grow scallions only since they won’t make a proper globe onion because of lack of the correct day-length during the growing season.
Bareroot onions are plants of short-day varieties that were planted from seeds in fall and dug up when the weather got cold, but before there has been any frost. After digging up the plants, growers remove all the earth from their roots leaving the roots and the green leaves attached. They tie the bare-rooted plants together in bundles with roots and green tops left on them and they keep them cold or under refrigeration, but without freezing, until it’s time to ship them to nurseries ahead of our January bareroot season. These bareroot, short-day onions, such as you purchased, do not have a bulb. Instead, they have long narrow shape, similar to green onions, with no bulbous shape at the bottom. Local gardeners can purchase these bareroot transplants in nurseries in warm-winter climates in January. It’s important to plant them as soon as you purchase them. Unlike onion sets, they don’t keep long.
I hope this clears up the confusion and am glad your question gave me the chance to explain.
This is the best explanation of MANY that I have ever heard/read – I actually understand it…FINALLY! This dang QA thing was the idea of a genius!
Delany:
Thanks so much for this great comment. I am not surprised you didn’t understand before since there is no one place to find this information. Few gardeners or nursery folks realize that growers simply cannot grow sets of short-day onions, much as they might like to do so.
This was great! I agree with Delaney.
The Q&A was a great idea.
This is a great explanation of so much.
Hard to find. Most writers gloss over
too much.
A lot of this was over my head, so
this may not be pertinent but here goes.
I recently bought a sweet onion that was
quite large but looked like a scallion.
I bought it at a small Florida farmers
market. The farms were so small that
several would share one space. I had
never seen anything like it before and
I buy every kind of sweet onion as we love them. This was quite different
and in southwest Florida. Again, thanks
for the information. P.S. This onion growing looks complicated
so I will stick with shallots in my kitchen garden in N.C. and support my
local Florida farmers when I am there.
Thank you for this comment interesting comment.
For us in Southern California I have discovered the foolproof method to grow short-day onions and that is explained in detail in my book. Basically it’s a matter of planting from seeds during the first 11 days of November and transplanting them in January into a new row at the correct distance apart or alternatively planting short-day onions from bare-root transplants (not from sets.)
The thick neck comes from several things and one of these may be failing to stop fertilizing at the end of the growing season. For us here in Southern California we have to stop fertilizing in mid-May. By doing this the bulb expands but the green top stops growing. Then you have a beautiful globe onion instead of a giant scallion. If we plant sets here they become scallions, maybe very big ones if we leave them in the ground long enough, but they are scallions nonetheless and they go to seed.
I imagine that a local farm advisor in your locality could provide you with the correct planting dates in your area for short-day (sweet) onions. It’s all a matter of day-length and temperature. If you find the answer, please let me know. Thanks!
Why Short Day Onions Don’t make Sets?
Go to Dutch Valley Onion Set Growers Website and ask them how they can grow and sell Granex short day onion sets if short day onions don’t make sets.
They sell them to garden centers all over the southern USA as Sweet Onion Sets.
I have not trialed them yet because they need to be in the garden growing over winter. I prefer the green short day transplants for mid January planting in Northeast Texas.
I do sucessive plantings of Dutch Valley long day white, yellow and red sets for a quick harvest of green bunching onions from October thru March
When a company says they grow “sets” of short-day onions they are simply using the wrong terminology. They have no intention of lying or stating an untruth, even though they are stating something that is not so. I promise you that it is totally impossible for a short-day onion to become a set. If it did so it would have miraculously morphed into a mid-day onion and therefore no longer be any good for our purposes in Southern California. Here we need an onion that will continue growing all winter and not stop dead in its tracks, which is necessary for a set to be created.
An onion set is a small dormant bulb. Short-day onions do not make bulbs, they stay green and growing throughout winter. Companies that dig and sell them in January and February are selling them as bare-rooted plants, not as sets. This is purely a problem of semantics (terminology), not of facts.
My job, as I understand it, is to promote healthy organic practices of farming and gardening and to teach gardening to intelligent people like you and thousands of other people who read my books and who are capable of understanding scientific facts based on factual knowledge. My job is not to tell some seed company what it should print in its catalogue. Some companies hire kids who know little to put together their catalogues or other people who perhaps never went to ag school and who have not done the research to know the appropriate terminology of the plants they are selling. It is not my job to mix into such things and try to straighten them out.
Trust me when I tell you I know the difference between a set onion and a onion plant for transplant. Dutch Valley Onion Set Growers Co-op knows the difference too. Please go to their wholesale website and you may be suprized to find the small dry dormant onion bulb sets known as shortday sweet sets listed right along with the intermediate and longday sets their growers in northern Illinois produce.
I contacted Dutch Valley Growers about useing the shortday sweet onion sets to grow large sweet shortday onions like those grown from transplants useing the normal planting and harvest times in zone 8 for Granex shortday types. I recieved a prompt reply with photos of large sweet onions growing on Florida and California onion farms using Dutch Valley dormant sweet sets.
Mention was also made of a north Dallas onion grower here in zone 8 being very sucessful in producing large sweet onions using Dutch Valley sweet onion sets. Again, SETS are small dry dormant onion bulbs.
New Crop Sweet Onion SETS will be available again in the fall of 2011. I will be looking forward to planting sweet sets as I gather all the preplant info.
Sets are produced by planting seed at the right time and sowing them thickly as to limit size. A onion is a Biennial and normally will not go to seed during its first growth cycle. Sending up a seed head in it’s second growth cycle after a period of dormancy is quite common. How else would seed be produced. Secret to prevent onions from going to seed is plant very small dry sets. Bulb size is limited and keeping ability is nixed when a seed head is produced. We called them stiffnecks. Not to be sold at our farmstand.
Why Short Day Onions Do Not Make Sets. (Small Dry Onion Bulbs)
For what it’s worth. I myself have produced small dry Granex short day onion bulbs unintentionally. I grow lots of Granex plants from seed. I sow seed in cold frames quite thickly in two inch wide bands in October in NE TX for transplanting to growing fields in January. One year a while back some thickly seeded onion plants in a cold frame did not get transplanted and left to themselves. They bulbed up small because of the overcrowding about the same time as those transplanted to the field. Perfect little minatures of their big brothers. I dug them little bulbs when the tops fell over and they cured perfectly as did the large ones in the fieldss. For some reason I do not have a onion storage problem with these (use them quick cause they spoil) shortday types. They keep quite well for us over the summer months large or small. They finally sprout but it takes a good while. When the big ones were used up or sold all that was left was this tray of cute little Granex Sets. Thought about planting them in the fall for scallions but never did and ended up letting them sprout, get wet and ruin. If you plant shortday onion seed thickly they will bulb up small just like longday types planted thickly. They only need 12 hours of daylite to make it happen.
Well this is interesting, because I did not think it was possible. I thought if subjected to freezing temperatures, short-day onions would die (which they will when in the green state.) You didn’t allow these seed-grown plants to keep growing. Instead you stressed them by neglecting (drying) and crowding.
You have now proved to me that it is possible to make a short day onion make a set (though it is never done commercially.) What you have not yet proved is if your short-day onion sets will go on and grow into a full-sized globe onion in their second year of life. My bet is that they won’t and that instead they would only become a scallion that would flower and never reach a full-sized sweet onion bulb. This is because they would be in their second year of growth and onions are biennial, flowering in their second year.
Also, I said if you could make a short-day onion make a bulb (a set) it would no longer be a short-day onion. It would indeed be interesting to discover if by stressing seeds this way you created a hot, pungent onion that was also a short-day onion. I realize these musings between you and me are a bit too esoteric for most folks who read this blog, but it’s an interesting thing to think about and I wish you would plant one of your short-day onion sets, grow it to maturity and see what happens. If it only grows into a giant scallion that rots and pops up a flower, it proves what I said. It is no longer a short-day onion but a medium-day onion that will only make a scallion in a mild climate and will not grow to be a proper bulb. The thing to remember is that onions are biennials and make a flower in their second year. A short day onion is a biennial also, but we grow it as a cool-season annual, thus in its second year it makes a true bulb and not a flower.
It sounds to me that you know more than I do on this subject so let me here your thoughts on this!
My thoughts
I have a bit of truck farming experience having grown up on “Chicago’s Last Farm” I crawled many a mile weeding onions by hand as a kid.
In the neighboring community of South Holland, Ill growing onion sets was big business. Longday types. South Holland became known as “The set Capitol of the World”
http://www.dutchvalleygrowers.com is the 4th generation of the Original South Holland Dutch Settlers and probably still the largest set producer around. For sure in the USA.
We grew our best “Prizetaker” onions from home grown transplants we grew from seed in the hotbed yard. We also grew at least a hundred crates of market onions a year from South Holland Sets.
The size of the set was important in choosing which ones to plant for scallions and which ones to plant for large bulbs called keepers. The big sets,”Over Runs” were bad about going to seed. Smaller than a dime they made a nice soft neck bulb that would keep.
When the Chicago farm became history in 72 we moved to NE TX. Short Day Onions is what is grown here and it is a different ballgame. I find plants I grow from seed seldom if ever go to seed and grow large bulbs. Transplants I buy if fat as my little finger almost always go to seed. I think they are tricked into thinking they are two years old by going half dormant in the bunch. Small as a pencil in the same bunch,(same age)make a nice big soft neck keeper.
I plant white Ebenezers, a long day set for green onions quick. The bigger the set the bigger and quicker the harvest of green onions. 4 to 5 weeks if planted deep and the weather is mild October thru May. The little sets take longer to get up to harvest size. They never bulb up like they do up north because the days get hot and are to short for long day onions to bulb.
I imagine I would have some problem with Super Sweet Sets going to seed. Dutch Valley Growers ship 2 sizes. Small and what I would call Over Runs. On their “How to grow Onions from Sets page. They give pretty good details of the when,what and where to plant the varieties they offer. A sweet scallion onion sounds good to me. These Ebs I grow are pretty hot.
Pat: If you would allow me to forward a email reply from Dutch Valley with photos of large sweet onions grown from Super Sweet “Granex” SETS. Email me. One of the photos was taken in California. I see no evidence of bolting in the photos
sent
Having a great day here. Made my second trip this week to sell Kale, Bibb Lettuce and Spinach to the health food store. Opps. I forgot to mention green onions.
This is a great letter and jam-packed with information. Thank you so much for writing it. It’s a real privilege to have someone like you write in and share your experience, for example that the tiny sets were more likely to have the tops dry off properly and make a good bulb. That is a great tip. Do you have any special tips for bunching onions? They grow like weeds in interior zones here but don’t do well along the coast.
I grew my short-day onions from seeds of Grano or Granex. I sewed the seeds in a short seed row over driplines during the first 11 days of November, fed them with liquid fertilizer in December and then transplanted the onions in January at proper spacing into another row from which I had harvested out the cauliflowers. I fed with solid fertilizers, Jan. Feb, March, April, then switched to liquid in May, then pulled the drip line out in late May and let the bulbs dry in the row for a week or two before harvesting in early to mid June. The tops always fell over beautifully. My daughter raised super short-day onions from seeds last year and never pulled out the drip lines, they just got bigger and bigger and had nice floppy tops. (Shown on one of my videos.) I think it might have been the weather. She thought this was a great home veggie to grow and said she will always grow them. My late hubbie loved to have them on his sandwiches.
I lived on a farm in Bucks County Pennsylvania in the early 1940’s after emigrating from England. It was a great life. Yes hard work but much happiness too. Our big cash crop was chickens. We had 10 different kinds of farm animals and fowl (cows, sheep, pigs, rabbits, chickens, bantams, turkeys, 2 kinds of ducks, and geese) because my mother read that you could get a tax advantage as family farm if you had ten. She ran the farm with a set of farming encyclopedias. Would read it at night and tell us what to do the next day. My brother and I worked hard as kids, but had fun too and learned a huge amount. We grew medium-daylength onions there. Pretty good success though New Jersey’s climate was better for onions and also tomatoes but we had good ones and great raspberries and corn. All the veggies were really great and we canned like mad.
To the Bunching Onion Question
Many named varieties of bunching onions are available. Crystal White Wax and Evergreen Long White Bunching seed being available almost anywhere. Others are White Lisbon, Feast, Parade and Performer to name a few. I have no experience at all growing true bunching onions. Territorial seed company has several interesting varities listed in the Scallion/Bunching onion section of their catalog. I would like to try them for more variety at the Farmers Market.
Pat
I ran across some interesting reading this evening concerning what seems to be the best kept short day onion growing secret to date. I carefully soaked up every word.
I can hardly wait until October of 2011 to plant my first “COMMERCIAL” Short Day Onion Sets produced by the experts in the fields of north eastern Indiana.USA
http://www.columbiapublications.com/onionworld/julyaugust2005/growingonionsets.htm
Pat
Another follow up on the Short Day “Set” question
A Mid South and Southeastern Wholesale Lawn and Garden Products, Pro Turf and Landscape Supply and Pro Grower supply Company. BWI, Bunch Wholesale lists the Onion Set-Super Sweet in their online catalog.
This is the same Granex Short Day set onion grown by the Rietvelds in Kouts, Indiana for Short Day Commercial Onion Growers in the South and California. They are available wholesale only from BWI in #10 packs at market price from mid September thru October. Retail outlets in the south from South Carolina to Texas order their sets from BWI for resale
http://www.bwicompanies.com online catalog. Click- Retail Catalog. Click- Bulbs,Sets&Plants. Click- Onion Sets. See Super Sweet.
See them on http://www.dutchvalleygrowers.com site in detail.
When I get some next fall I will share some so you can try them in California.
Well that is very interesting, but I do have some questions:1. By making a short-day onion make a set, have you not clearly told that plant that it has now finished a year of growth? Since it is programmed to flower in its second year won’t it then flower instead of making a bulb? 2. When would be the right time to plant a set of a sweet onion here where the temperature never drops below about 48 in winter and where the plant is meant to grow all winter, not exist in dormant state? 3. If someone is making bulbs (sets) of short day onions in the first year of the onion’s life, what is to stop it from going to seed in its second year instead of making a glove onion? 4. If these sets will really grow into a globe onion in a mild frost-free climate, why don’t they sell them here in Southern California?
I think I should explain that the secret of growing a good sweet onion here (i.e.: a globe onion with a thin top that dries up properly and flops over and does not go to seed) is fall planting and keeping it growing vegetatively fast as you can all winter. This way the plant is still in its first year of growth. It doesn’t seem to know it’s in the second year after the winter solstice. If you begin with a set then the plant is in its second year by which time it’s programmed to go to seed.
All we get here in local nurseries are sets of medium day-length onions, but because our climate does not have long enough days to trigger these to make a bulb they will just make a scallion. If you leave these scallions in the ground too long they will rot and flower and never make a proper bulb.
(Of course there is also now an All America Award day-length-neutral onion, but we are not getting into that subject here.)
Pat
All your questions are valid and right on topic. I’m like you in having the same questions. After all. Where do we get short day onion seed from if we keep them from going to seed growing them as a annual.
Strangely enough a onion seems to have a mind of its own when it comes to sending up a seed stalk. The list of factors researchers have found that trigger unwanted seed head formation is long and complicated.
All I know is I don’t have all the answers. From experience I know this. If I grow Short Day bulbs to maturity from seed it takes 130 to 150 days. The tempratures during the growing period have a bearing on just how long it takes. Warmer=quicker. Colder=longer.
When onion plants are small and grasslike they can’t take much cold and if grown in the open can be freeze killed. As they get a bit bigger they can stand more cold. This year our coldest nighttime temperatures came in late January and early Febuary. 14 degrees F. Not taking any chances on frost kill the beds of transplanted seedlings were covered with 8 degrees of freeze blanket protection. The transplants had pencil size stems and 3 or 4 leaves the tallest of which were about 8 inches. Needless to say they were just fine and now have 6 and 7 leaves 16 to 18 inches tall. It was 27 degrees here this morning at daybreak. I don’t worry about protecting them now unless temps are predicted to fall into the teens.
A note about cold shock triggering seed stalk formation is a worry I try to ignore. Short day onions grown from transplants, in my experience, have gone to seed in their growth cycle as annuals just before bulbing. Something triggered it. In most cases just here and there with certain plants from the same lot or bunch.
Plant size at transplanting and other factors do play a roll in triggering seeding. All of which I do not completly understand.
Growing big bulbs from “sets” especially with short day and intermediate varieties is as new to me as it is you. I’m depending on information gleaned so far only from short day set producers one of which is the president of The National Onion Growers Association, Dave Rietveld and the other the Marketing Manager for Dutch Valley Onion Growers, John Rietveld. They are related.
Culture information is wholefully absent. No research papers I can find on the subject of Short Day onion production from set onions seems to exhist. I enjoy having to do all my own research by experimentation alone. But!
My experience with growing (ONLY LONG DAY) sets has been limited to green onion (Scallion) growing. I can tell you this. The size of the set bulb planted determines two things. #1 the bigger the bulb the quicker a sizeable scallion can be harvest. Also, if left in the ground too long big bulb scallions will go to seed. #2 Small bulbs take twice as long or longer to grow a sizeable scallion. The heat here gets them before they bulb so they usually die before seeding. Up north the smaller sets produce a larger bulb but probably not as large as a seeded transplant of the same variety.
Some of my research has uncovered this information. Short Day Seed is sowed up north to produce pearl processing onions and what is called a boiling onion which are a bit larger. Seed sowing density id definitly a factor in bulb size. Short Day onions seeded in long day onion growing areas naturally bulb up at a small size. The sets of short day onions the Rietveld Farms grow is located in Kouts Indiana. I believe they seed early as soon as the ground can be worked. April?
If we could get the Rietvelds to jump in on this “Short Day Set” subject maybe we could get any and all our questions answered.
I want to visit in person with a grower buying and planting Short Day Onion “Sets”. I think the culture is the same as short day transplants but right now I have only my Long Day set experience to guide me.
I see in Florida fields of short day onions are grown using plastic mulch. They get their “Sweets” off and to the market two to three weeks before the GA “Vidalias”
How do I send you a picture Pat. Can I post a picture on this forum?
Another little tidbit I ran across is in Elliot Colemans book The Winter Harvest Handbook where he writes; We have purchased onion plants from the Texas growers and set them out in our cool houses the first week in January. We purchased the same short-day varieties that are traditionally grown in Vidalia,GA, and our harvest in early May was about the same time as theirs. These Varieties produced very large, sweet, round bulbs that were a great hit with local restaurants.
This is in Maine Folks!
He finds his unheated “Quick Hoop” houses along with frost blanket row covers, provide inexpensive protection for growing Onions, scallions, spinach and lettuce during the coldest months in Maine.
Ouch. Some of my tomato transplants I had hardening off in my “Quick Hoops” got frost bit last night. Never believe the weather channel to be dependable when predicting lows for the night. Predicted low was 35. It was 27. Should have popped on the frost blankets to be on the safe side.
How big are your onion fields? This can be a huge cash crop but if it fails can be a devastating loss. I knew of a California grower years ago whose whole 5-acre field in the San Gabriel Valley, in which he had sunk his all, rotted due to heavy rains. He changed course and founded a great school instead.
In my case living along the coast and gardening in a home garden I never once had a crop failure and this was because I learned a fool-proof system from an old-timey grower and followed ever since. My system is to plant short-day onions during the first 11 days of November from seeds, feed them for growth during winter and spring, transplant them to correct distance in January, stop feeding in mid-May, and pull the drip lines two weeks prior to harvest in by late June. (ie: No fertilizer during last month of growth and no water during last two weeks. You have to switch to liquid fertilizer in late spring so none is left in the ground when the plant is ready to make a bulb.) This system gave me perfect onions every single time with never a thick neck and never one bulb going to seed.
They go to seed when they think they’ve had 2 years growth or if they keep on growing when they should not. It’s all because of day length and temperature, but maybe also nutrition.
You have a much tougher time in Texas due to more variable temperatures. I think it’s a great idea for you to find some other commercial grower nearby to talk to or simply go look and see what those guys do and when they plant. The guy who taught me what to do learned by watching the field of a very smart onion grower. He learned the dates for strawberries the same way. One day this way or that can make a difference. That’s what is true here. If you plant on the 12th day of November, your onion crop can fail or your pre-chilled strawberries grow a whole bunch of leaves instead of fruiting.
Pat,
Short day onions begin to form bulbs in spring when day length is about 12 hours. Seed is normally sown in October or November, but a late planting in January/February would result in small bulbs or sets. These mild onions do not store well, and exposure to temperatures around 40 degrees F. can induce bolting. To grow a crop of mild-flavored bulbs it’s best to plant seed or young transplants in fall.
Vince
Thank you for straightening out this controversy. I stand corrected. I have learned that short day onions are occasionally sold as sets in Texas and the plants are also crowded to additionally force development of sets, but a farmer who planted them wrote to me that they rotted in his climate. The heading on this section is therefore incorrect. Short day onions do form sets if sowed in spring, but the sets are no good to anyone and they are not sold in California nurseries. So far as I know all onion sets sold here are midday length or long-day length because these keep well on nursery shelves. One can grow good scallions from them. Transplants of short-day onions are sold here in many nurseries in January and this is a big convenience to gardeners. Thanks for your correction!
Great idea if you are reading my blog and correcting it. Yes it’s better if you send comments like you did because that saves me some work figuring out how to make the correction. Do you think I should correct the short-day onion heading? I could ask Loren to change it to “Short-Day Onions, Seeds or Sets?” Thanks for helping to keep my blog accurate!
UPDATE
Well folks I’m at the end of my 2013/14 Commercial Short Day Sweet Texas Onion Growing Season. I grow my sweet bulb onion crop using both-
Dutch Valley Growers “Super Sweet” sets (small dormant bulbs) planted out in the field in November and over wintered with harvesting as large bulb green top “Spring Onions” beginning in April.
Leaving the majority to mature for large bulb dry onions harvested and cured as the tops fall over in early May. I wholesale these medium to large dry onions by the bushel
And- Short Day and Intermediate Day Dixondale Transplants planted out in the field in January and harvested now the end of May and early June as the tops fall over.
My biggest bulbs this year were from Dixondale White Intermediate Super Star/Sierra Blanca transplants pulled last week. Some over 5″ across.
By using both DVG “SETS” and Dixondale Transplants I extend my sweet onion sales from early April thru Mid June.
I would highly recommend fall planted DVG Super Sweet Short Day “sets” for the earlyness of these very sweet yellow skin onions. Ask your local feed and seed store to order them for you if they don’t already stock them. They will be available again from the southern wholesalers like BWI in Texarkana about mid September 2014. Package size #10 sacks about 1600 to 1800 bulbs bulk.
Caution! Don’t try to plant the DVG Super Sweet sets availabe from Walmart in January in Zone 8&9. The ones I trialed planted in January did not bulb as expected.
YES! Short Day onion varieties DO make “sets” (little dry dormant bulbs) that make big Sweet Texas Onions as grown by me in Rusk County TX. AND. Few if any bolt and go to seed. Kenny