Features of growing black onions

Growing ordinary onions from nigella seeds requires careful preparation. Sowing material on a turnip is carried out in March and in other periods, while it is important to choose the right varieties, check the expiration dates. A detailed overview of all the important points will help you figure out where to sow the black onion when planting it on the head.

Black onion is a type of planting material, and not at all a separate variety of this plant. Seeds are collected during flowering. When fully ripe, they turn black – hence the name. The description of the seeds is quite simple. Each of them is formed in a miniature box that appears in place of the onion flower.

Get nigella after the plant gives an arrow. Usually, the inflorescences are cut off to increase the size of the turnip in the ground. But to get your own planting material, you do not need to do this. It is important to wait until flowering is completed, and then leave the resulting boxes on the arrow until they are fully ripe. When collecting seeds, cut off the heads carefully so as not to lose their contents.

The planting material is inexpensive, and the variety of varieties is estimated in dozens of items.

It is worth knowing that absolutely any onion can be grown by seed. But in Russia, nigella is traditionally used for planting a certain group of varieties. This includes lettuce white onion and purple sweet, yellow and red. When choosing seed material for sale, you can pay attention to those varieties that are most often used for cultivation by sowing.

• “Black Prince”. Red onion with a bright burgundy color of the husk. The heads are not large, up to 70 g in weight, with a juicy, slightly bitter core.

• “Crimson Ball”. The dark purple heads of this onion have a regular spherical shape. Productive variety, with a sweet salad taste.

• Hybrid “Esaul”. Mid-season semi-sharp onion with medium ripening. It gives bountiful harvests. The heads are medium, rounded.

• “Neman”. White variety, one of the most famous and popular. This is a mid-season onion with an average sharpness of taste. Heads weighing up to 150 g each grow from sevka.

• Myachkovsky. Early ripe medium-sized onion with yellow peel. The variety is valued for its general unpretentiousness, ease of cultivation.

• “Strigunovsky”. Onions of medium ripening, with heads weighing 80-100 g. The taste is slightly spicy, with a slight bitterness. The variety is suitable for long-term storage.

• “Centaur”. A variety of yellow large onions with a short ripening period. Resistant to difficult growing conditions, adverse climatic conditions.

• “Exgibishen.” Variety of Dutch origin with very large heads – up to 600-800 g in weight. It is very good in salads, has a sweet taste without bitterness.

• Sterling. Almost a delicious white onion with large heads. Delicious fresh, in salads and preserves.

• “Bessonovsky”. Small-fruited onion variety, characterized by unpretentiousness to growing conditions. It is versatile, producing rounded bulbs of small size with a characteristic spicy taste. Stored until next season.

Among other popular varieties that can be grown from black onions, we should highlight “Moldavian” and “Siberian”, “Carmen” and “Stuttgarten Riesen”.

The traditional sowing time for nigella comes in the spring. The exact timing depends on whether the seeds will be placed directly in the garden or grown in seedlings. In cold climatic zones, from Siberia to the Urals, the second method is used. Sowing for seedlings is carried out in March, in the first decade of the month. Plants will be ready for transfer to open ground in mid-May.

In Central Russia and in the northwestern part of the country, direct planting begins at the end of April. With the seedling method, the timing will be different. Seeds are sown in containers at the end of February. In early May, the young onion will be ready for transfer to the ground.

In the south, sowing is carried out only in a direct way. The choice of dates depends on the characteristics of the climatic zone. You can focus on the end of March – the beginning of April.

In order for the seeds to be well protected from diseases, they need pre-training. The soil in which the onion will be planted should also be properly cultivated. This will help you avoid most of the risks. For each stage, the rules of preparation will be different.

When buying seeds, be sure to pay attention to the expiration date. For black onions, it is 2-3 years. Self-collected seeds are stored as much as purchased ones.

The next step will be the treatment of infectious diseases, fungal spores. For this, soaking in disinfecting liquids is used. Seeds for greater convenience are pre-placed in a cloth bag. Then for 20-30 minutes they are immersed in a solution of manganese at a concentration of 0,1%. After processing, the seeds are washed with running water.

When growing black onions, summer residents often want to quickly germinate planting material. This is quite possible if the seeds are treated in a special solution. The easiest way is to soak them in the Epin solution, preparing it from 1 drop of the product and 200 ml of liquid. They are impregnated with clean gauze, onion seeds are laid on it, left until roots form, periodically adding a solution. It is possible to accelerate germination both with the seedling method and with direct sowing.

Soil preparation in the garden consists of a number of basic agrotechnical measures.

1. Digging. It will allow you to select weeds, loosen the earth, saturate it with oxygen.
2. Fertilizer. If manure has already been added to the soil in the fall, you will not have to add it additionally. Poor soil or turf is saturated with compost, humus, complex fertilizers, taking into account the type of crop.
3. Leveling. It will facilitate sowing, help to easily outline the rows.

It is necessary to plant the nigella correctly so that the recommended terms are not violated. Otherwise, it will not work to grow large sets. In regions with a warm climate, even landing on a layer of snow is possible. This will provide a more even distribution of seeds, give them additional conditions for hardening.

When grown on an industrial scale, the seeding rate per 1 ha is 1000000-1250000 units. The distance when growing per head (on a turnip) and on greens will be different. The seeder facilitates this process, speeds up and automates it.

If you want to be guaranteed to get a full-fledged crop of nigella within one season, cultivation is performed in seedlings. Seeds can be sown in containers from late February to late March. The seeds are germinated beforehand in order to get shoots faster.

The step by step process looks like this.

1. Soil moisture.
2. Seed placement. You can also use dry ones, but it will take more time to get sprouts.
3. Sprinkling with a layer of humus. It is slightly compacted.
4. Covering crops with foil. It is periodically removed, the soil is sprayed with warm, settled water.
5. Emergence of seedlings. When the first green shoots appear, the container is transferred to a well-lit window. It is desirable to maintain the temperature in the range of + 15-16 degrees Celsius.

By mid-spring, onion seedlings in containers are placed outdoors or in a greenhouse. The optimum temperature for her is 6-7 degrees. Young onions are transferred to the ground in the 1st decade of May. At this point, the onion should have thin feathers about 15 cm high.

Planting nigella in the “snail” is quite popular.. You need to sow the seeds in a specially created roll. In it, the seedlings are healthier, stronger. A stand is formed under the “snail” – a bowl or container with transparent walls, slightly larger in diameter than a bundle, is suitable. She herself is made from a substrate for a laminate, sold in hardware stores.

Seeding step by step looks like this.

1. The table is covered with oilcloth.
2. The laminate substrate is cut into strips the width of a toilet paper roll and a length of 150 mm.
3. A layer of moist earth about 1 cm thick is poured onto 1 such tape, with an indent of 10 mm from the top edge.
4. The seeds are spread. It is worth retreating 20 mm from the top of the substrate.
5. Upon completion of sowing, the roll is wrapped in a “snail”, fastened with stationery rubber bands.
6. The roll is vertically placed in the container. Water is poured into the bottom of the container. The part with the seeds should be facing up.
7. Crops are sprayed from a spray bottle. Then a bag is put on the upper edge, fixed with an elastic band.

The mini greenhouse is ready. All that remains is to ventilate and spray the soil before germination, removing the bag, and then, at the first green sprouts, provide the plants with normal daylight hours.

Embedding seeds in the soil has certain limitations. On light soils, they are deepened by 30 mm. On heavy and dense, sowing is carried out with 15-20 mm of chernushka. Upon completion of planting, the soil is rolled with a special tool. This will harden its surface.

The landing pattern also has its own characteristics. Leave 18-20 cm between rows. At first, nigella is sown quite densely. As seedlings appear, thinning is carried out, based on the following standards:

• on sevok leave a distance of 50-60 mm between plants;
• on the tail – 80-100 mm.

Autumn sowing allows you to get more mature annual onions. In this case, the landing process is no different. But in winter, the surface of the soil is carefully covered with a thick layer of snow. In spring, the surface before germination is mulched with humus or peat, laying them in a layer of 20 mm.

When germinating onions from seeds at home and in the garden, do not forget about caring for them. Crops will need picking and watering, several times you will have to feed the seedlings. The basic set of such measures will be as follows.

1. Thinning. It is performed when the bow releases 1-2 feathers. It will take several steps. Feathers plucked during picking can be used in cooking. Extra seedlings are removed, leaving 80-100 mm between adjacent plants.
2. Loosening and watering. It is important to keep the soil moist until germination begins. In the future, watering is regulated as the earth dries out, and is carried out using warm, settled water. After each such procedure or natural precipitation, the soil is loosened. Stop watering about 21 days before the planned harvest.
3. Additional fertilizing. It is not required if the bed was well fertilized during preparation. In other cases, after thinning, you need to add a solution of mullein in a ratio of 1: 5.

Garden pests such as onion fly and stem nematode can pose a potential danger to onions grown from seeds.. The first has a detrimental effect on the surface parts of the plant, the second eats its head. The easiest way to protect crops is by using safe natural measures. To do this, marigolds or calendula are placed around the perimeter of the onion beds, the smell of which repels insects.

You can also periodically sprinkle the beds with wood ash and tobacco leaves ground into dust. It will prevent the onion fly from infecting the beds and laying covering material on the soil surface.

Of the diseases, root rot, which occurs due to infection of plants with a fungus, is the most dangerous for nigella.. In this case, it is worth starting treatment with Fitosporin, a safe fungicide. In a wet summer, spraying for preventive purposes is performed at intervals of 14 days.

The approximate time for the emergence of black onion seedlings is 2 weeks. If this process is delayed, the cause may be a violation of the landing rules. Sometimes onions do not germinate for a long time because the seed material is of poor quality. Therefore, it is so important to carefully check it for germination. Sowing blind can have a bad effect on the final yield.

Understanding what to do if the bow falls is also important. Usually fallen feathers indicate that it is time to harvest. It is worth waiting until 3/4 landings take this position.

Other possible problems include yellowing of the feathers. It may be related to:

• bacterial infection;
• lack of nitrogen in the soil;
• drying out of the soil.

Only by establishing the exact cause, it is possible to prescribe adequate treatment. This may be an increase in the rate of watering, fertilizing. Bacterial infections should be treated with special drugs.

Getting a full-fledged head from a 1-year-old onion is a desirable goal for many summer residents. But only large-fruited varieties give such results. Having made a mistake with the choice of material, you can only wait for sevka. The same goes for seeding density. In this case, the onion simply cannot grow large enough.