onions dieing

[captainhastings]

Every year my onions start well then the leaves start to look nibbled and its game over I may as well pull them up I get the same on either of my 2 plots in any location it seems



My my neighbours are all ways fine

[jacob]

They look OK to me, what's up?

[muddled]

so, do they get suddenly worse than the picture? Because those ones don't look too bad.

Last year did you look closely at the ones you pulled up?
Any evidence of beasties or rot?
Any rust coloured spotting on the leaves?

I think you should start an investigation, make notes, lots of photos, be all methodical about it because if your onions collapse every year you really need to get to the bottom of this .

[captainhastings]

note the hole in the leaf give it a week or two and the leaves will be gone

[muddled]

oooer! I see it now. That doesn't look good at all!

I found this....seems to have good information and you might find your problem on the list. A quick through made me think your problem could be 'white tip' but you will know better than I so lets see if I can make the link work...
https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rc...nsU-8w&cad=rja

Its a PDF file but doesn't take long to load.

[Martin H]

Mine get those holes in the leaves too. I think it's mostly slugs making geurrilla raids from the long grass nearby, to be honest. If it were some other disease or a flying pest, all the neighbouring plots would have it too ... and they don't. The one problem we all have is from some plants having twisted and distorted foliage, I haven't got to the bottom of that one yet.

[bearded bloke]

The one problem we all have is from some plants having twisted and distorted foliage, I haven't got to the bottom of that one yet.

Do they look anything like this Martin? ........





That's one of my garlic, sure sign of alium leaf miner, now pulled up & burnt


with regard to original question, I also think slugs, personally I would remove affected leaves as close to the bulb as possible, if you get rain/heavy dew the tube could start to fill with water & help rot set into the bulb

[Martin H]

Do they look anything like this Martin? ........

No, I don't think it's leaf miner because if it's like last year, there's no little grubs in there and they grow out of a lot of the curliness. Here's a picture from last year at this time, they look much the same this year:

[astraman1]

could be pigeons ive watched them on our allotment favour one or two plots because there more secluded

ive a few nibbles on my shallots too but im playing the numbers game i have 300 planted most of them seem ok

[bearded bloke]

No, I don't think it's leaf miner because if it's like last year, there's no little grubs in there and they grow out of a lot of the curliness. Here's a picture from last year at this time, they look much the same this year:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]64706[/ATTACH]

Could it be that the leaves are growing to much to support themselves I wonder ? AP might have some better ideas about it

[Martin H]

I took a close-up of a curly one this afternoon. As you can see, it's the older leaves that are curled up, the newer ones are normal.

[captainhastings]

mmm interesting. My garlic and leeks are all ways fine too and the fella literally ten yards away all ways has good onions. Yet this is my third year and I have two plots and tried on both and yet to get a decent onion lol. Oh well we will persist in our endeavours

[captainhastings]

shallots looking ok but I can see the tips starting to go and I can see where they are heading too

[astraman1]

checking today a few of mine have been targeted so ive put some slug pellets round them to see if its them i will look for casualties tomorrow if not then it must be birds

one thing i did notice there was quite a few ants around maybe it could be them do you have alot of ants around your onions

[captainhastings]

not really ants no
I have put pellets round like you. Must remember to just net them next year then i rule out a few hings bit late now really