Failing Onions - help please 2nd year in a row

[lizzylemon]

Hey everyone, LOOOOOOOK at my onions. What the bloomin heck is wrong with them. It happened just like this last year too.

I plant them out as per instructions, they grow lovely and then suddenly it all goes wrong.

I pulled these 4 yesterday and I'm at a loss - should I pull all the others out now too so I don't loose them them all.

It looks like a load of different things to me: the roots are missing, the bulbs look eaten and they're rotting too.

All of it's happening below soil levels. Very disappointing - it's getting the garlics too.

[Sprocket*]

Are they growing white fur? It would be onion rot (not good and only advice is that it takes 7 ish years not growing onion family) or they getting too much wet?

Are you growing them in freshly manured ground?

You have my sympathy as we lost most of ours last year to something similar, fingers crossed for this year. Which bit of the country are you in?


Smile and pull up the rest for damage limitation

[burnie]

Are you crop rotating?,i.e not planting the same things in the same place year after year.
It would be unusual or unlucky to get a problem like this all over your plot.

[solway cropper]

I bought some cheap sets from a pound shop this year and they've been a dismal failure. Could yours be poor quality to start with... they look just like mine

[Snadger]

Check to see if there's any white mycelium in the soil and if there was white fur around the plants...........if so you need to rethink your planting schedules as it could be onion white rot.
I'm trying a white rot resistant type....Golden Bear, grown from seed..........so far so good!

[esrikandan]

Could it be onion root fly? Some of mine started shrivelling up and dying. Pulled them up and they had tiny holes and little wormy things coming out of them. Luckily not all of them have been affected.

[DaveInBraknell]

Hi,

Being a curious soul I found this on the web:

Manitoba Weekly Vegetable Report | Manitoba Agriculture, Food and Rural Initiatives

Looks similar to what you have got, some form of rot unfortunatley.



Dave

[sarraceniac]

I bought two lots of sets (I thought about them too late for seed this year). I bought some Radars from a 'proper' supplier and some red ones from Wilko's. Planted next to each other and the Radars are fine and plump. The red ones look like yours Lizzie. I put it down to poor sets with mine.

[toastie]

Had to pull up all my onions this year as have had alium leaf miner - onions just didn't grow, bulbs were wet, etc. Left the shallots in they seem to be all right (this may be different when they're pulled up). Thankfully the garlics/spring onions are in a different part of the allotment and the little flies don't appear to have found those - only time will tell. The area where the onions were has been limed and have put some sunflowers in there - hopefully they will grow.

[lizzylemon]

Hi Everyone, a huge thank you for all your suggestions. I think Dave may have hit the nail on the head. It's a new plot (we put it in 2 autumns ago) and the problems been there since day one.

I pulled my shallots and they're all completely rotten too so I've pretty much lost the whole lot. I'm going to have more raised beds later this year (hubby will be notified asap) and so I'll try with fresh earth and a sunnier position and see what happens.

Im a complete newby to all this and I'm a plonk it in and see person most of the time but 2 years in a row is not on.....so thanks everyone I know its not something I've done wrong per say.

[gojiberry]

Just to rule out all possibilities of things that could go wrong, how deep are you planting your sets. The only reason I ask is that it looks from your picture as if the whole bulb has been below the surface but then that could just be the rot giving that impression. Just a thought.

Ian