Onion horror!

Well most of you will know that there was one crop I was so looking forward to harvesting was that was our large onion crop. The Japanese onions were nearly all pulled but imagine our horror yesterday to find something strange looking on our main crop onions only to find out it's Downy Mildew!

We have managed to catch it before it looks really bad and are now lifting the onions, although it doesn't hurt the onion bulb it's self it does stunt the bulb and the neck of the onion may go soft which will not allow the onions to keep as long as they should.

I don't think there is much you can do other than lifting but looking at the other plots their onions are almost black! A veteran plot holder is lifting his crop and trying to save as much as he can but we have been told that for the last few years it has been a problem throughout the site.

I have been told the hot, wet, humid weather is to blame for this disaster as well as the plot holders not getting rid of the diseased foliage from the previous years crop.

Have any of you been effected by this problem? Hel.xxx.

 

Last year my overwintering onion crop was totally ruined by downy mildew. And I do mean totally.
This year, harvest home, and best for ages.
Strange, n'est pas?

 

Great minds think alike Shiney before I posted the thread Bob and I had already pulled one full bed of onions and hung them up nice and tight around each neck to dry luckily quite a few are a good size.

Yes John have a good look and fingers crossed it will not happen to your crop.

Peri thanks sweetie for going to the trouble of finding that information out for me.
To be honest we have managed to catch it before it got really bad unlike the others on our site. It might not have gotten to us at all if the others took some action to halt it but no some left their crop in the ground to blacken and spread in the wind to other plots, you can always tell the 'criminals' they are also the ones that let the blight take over their spuds and everyone else's before they decide to remove the yellowed plants!

Manteur I can well imagine how gutted you were when you lost all your other onions to it so well done for saving your crop this time round hopefully we will manage to save ours too.

I suppose you'll win some and sometimes you'll lose some growing your own it's all a challenge and you have to be up for it.Hel.xxx.

 

If the weather is good for these disease, humid, wet, and not much of sunshine, and there was a problem the year before, then it is very likely that you will suffer again next year unfortunately.

The cabbages are very happy after all that rain this summer, no matter the weather, some crops will be happy!

 

It's ok Seedstotal you win some you loose some and in the end I lost very few onions indeed the ones that didn't do too well were one raised bed of red onions, thankfully I had a few rows in the big onion bed so I didn't miss out on the reds.:wink:Hel.xxx.