Onion diseases and how to deal with them
Unfortunately, all garden crops can get sick, and onions are no exception, and onion diseases do not always appear during the growing season, some of them are found during the winter storage period. As with any disease, it is easier to prevent it with good planting material and proper care.
One of the most common fungal diseases of all types of onions and garlic is downy mildew or transsporosis. First, light specks form on the feathers, then a grayish-purple bloom forms on them, the tops of the feathers die off. Having found these symptoms, you need to stop watering and feeding, cut off the affected feathers. After harvesting, the bulbs should be sun-dried for at least two weeks.
If the feather begins to turn yellow during the growing season, then it may be powdery mildew or onion fly. In this case, the plantings should be treated with a 1% solution of Bordeaux liquid, mulching with peat is carried out, tobacco dust or sand with the addition of naphthalene is poured along the rows. Onions also sometimes get sick with fusarium, rust, black mold. Diseases that appear during storage include cervical rot. The bulb begins to rot, becomes soft, squeezed, and becomes covered with a gray coating. It remains only to throw it away.
To prevent onion diseases, it is necessary to use healthy planting material, plant it in compliance with crop rotation, sow early, the location of the ridges in well-ventilated areas, at a sufficient distance from each other. During the growth period, carefully weed the plantings, do not allow them to become waterlogged, and remove only after yellowing and lodging of the feather.
There is always dampness in our garden. An exception to this rule is possible only in dry summers. This is probably why our onions in the beds first begin to turn yellow ahead of time, and then rot during storage.
Our onions have never been sick with fungal diseases. Maybe this is because we watered it no more than twice a week, that is, there was never an excess of moisture. When stored in the basement, a small amount of onions always deteriorates. Just throw away the onion that has begun to rot to reduce its loss.