Onion White Rot problems?

[zazen999]

I had a bed at home that was giving me white rot problems; so I've tried this twice now and it's worked. It even worked on spring onions that were outside all last winter...

a -build a mini raised bed just for onions. Mine have been made of 4 old bits of wood just screwed together and laid on the soil that had white rot problems [and still has as I have had to take a few out nearby].

b - fill the bed with a mix of sand and home made or general multi purpose compost. I used just common and garden building sand as we had loads left over after we had a wall built earlier this year. I used a mix of about 50/50.

c - sow your onions in modules, and when they just start to form little bulbs, transplant into the mini raised bed......

d - wait and keep the bed moist but not overwatered [which just means watering on if it has been warm for a day or so].

e - when the tops die down, harvest.

the tops of the onions do not have to be above the soil, as it is sand - they will bulb up beneath the soil and will look insignificant until you dig them up

They will possibly be a tad smaller than onions grown in rows or in a huge raised bed, but they should be nice and clean with no white rot. For mine, the rot has not travelled up the roots, even though the roots will go below the soil that HAD white rot it hasn't affected the onions in the sand mix.

I'm going to be doing this on a larger scale at the very clayey lottie, I lost quite a few to the dreaded white rot and I don't like it!!!!!

[Two_Sheds]

I had a lot of white rot again this year, but still managed to harvest loads of onions. It's weird, about half of my sets got it, and all of my Cipolla & Sturon from seed got it.

Red Barons & white pickling onions ... I lost about half the crop of each, but the surviving ones are superb, big and fat.

I can't get my head around why one onion is affected, and its neighbours are not. There seems to be no rhyme or reason as to which onions get it, it appears entirely random.

My soil is alkaline, sandy and I don't water my onions.

[Snadger]

I've tried Golden Bear (supposedly white rot resistant) purposely planted in white rot areas.
They haven't succumbed to white rot but they aint very big.............more like pickling onions.
I'm going to grow them again next year but sow them a tad sooner to hopefully get larger bulbs.

[Dottie]

I had a lot of white rot again this year, but still managed to harvest loads of onions. It's weird, about half of my sets got it, and all of my Cipolla & Sturon from seed got it.

Red Barons & white pickling onions ... I lost about half the crop of each, but the surviving ones are superb, big and fat.

I can't get my head around why one onion is affected, and its neighbours are not. There seems to be no rhyme or reason as to which onions get it, it appears entirely random.

My soil is alkaline, sandy and I don't water my onions.

I think I had a touch of white rot on about 8/10 spring onions this year, they were growing close to the only parsnip in that bed. So I was worried that the rest of my onions in with my beetroots, would also have white rot and then that bed would be out of bounds. But so far no other onions have suffered, so I'm a little confused.