Proper planting time for onion transplants in Georgia

Hi,

I have a quick question about setting out onion transplants, not sets, in Georgia. I am located outside of Atlanta, toward Athens in Walton county, Zone 7. Last year we ordered some short day onions from a Lyons GA grower for Oct planting, around 4000 plants, but they did not end up arriving to after Christmas. I planted them the first week in Jan and they sized up nicely. I also ordered about 5000 plants from Johnny's, these were planted mid-Feb. They were a mix of both short and intermediate day onions, the short day did not do as well as the intermediate day ones nor did they do as well as the batch of short day onions planted six weeks earlier. The best were about .5lb each. This year we plan on planting around 20,000 plants, half intermediate and half short day as well as 5,000 leeks. It seems like all the suppliers want to ship around Feb. I know that the mid-GA growers plant their short day sweet onions this month. I was wondering if there is a farmer out there who has planted both mid and short day in Oct vs. Jan/Feb and their results. I was also wondering if anyone knows of a good bulk supplier of red, yellow and white onion transplants as well as leeks that ship earlier, if they do indeed do better when planted early.

Hope you can help,
Mark and Lynn
Straight From The Backyard Farm
Loganville GA

I am interested in this too since I don't understand how you can keep short day onion sets from not growing now and until freeze. Wouldn't they start to grow too early in Spring, try to flower, and ruin the crop? I thought short days needed to be kept dormant until after solstice (around December 21st) and that is why long day sets, not short day starts, are usually planted in October. Most growers ship February for March planting. I hope the situation for starts is better than sets. I have only been able to get unnamed white sets for October planting and supplies are very limited here. Apparently there has been a problem all over N. GA with distribution of sets.

You all are bit too cool for short day onions to reach thier maximum potential. They typically grow in winter for harvest in April - Early May. But that requires areas where the ground does not freeze in winter.

Thanks, Farmedill. As it stands now I intend to plant out the two pounds of white sets I got sometime in late October and see if any more options come up. I was also going to order intermediate starts for Spring. Mhcapps, who did you order from in Lyons? Do they only sell wholesale like Farmerdill's GA source?

Off to plant more garlic.
Laurel

Hi,

I still have some confusion on the issue. Would I be better off planting my short day onion plants in Nov/Dec or waiting till the end of Jan. I can get the short day plants now, but the intermediate's wont be ready until Feb. I am worried that if I plant the short day onions oct, nov, that they will go to seed in the spring and not bulb. I did not realize we were a little to cold here for full sized short day onions, but would they be better off going in this fall or Jan to get them the largest. I buy my plants from Dixondale, Johnnys', but the sweet yellows from Cox Farms outside of Lyons.

Mark

If the ground does not freeze in your microclimate, short day onions planted in November do well. Usually that's zone 8 or higher but urban islands are frequently warmer. January depending on the weather when you set them, they may seed. It's the shock of going dormant and coming out of dormancy that triggers seeding. I would expect dayneutral/intermediate day onions to do better in your area. Short day onions middle to south Georgia

Hi Farmer Dill,

Thanks for the info. This was my first year planting on dry land, did 10 acres of it. What a year to learn the old ways:) It is amazing how little water crops will make on if they are regularly plowed and the ground subsoiled the previous winter. We had about 5 inches since the first of May until these most recent two rains up here in Walton county. This summer sure made the saying of planting in season ring really true. Would you suggest seeding my own seeds in some sandy loam flats or just going with the transplants.

Mark

Hi, Farmerdill!

This year I planted the Dixondale Farms short-day sampler on January 8th and harvested baseball size onions between July-August.

I have a short-day sampler ordered from Dixondale Farms for delivery and immediate plant out the end of October. We don't get ground freezes here, so, should the longer planting over winter give me a little larger onion size at harvest?

Linda

Probably more than you want: http://www.caes.uga.edu/Publications/pubDetail.cfm?pk_id=7749

-Rich

P.S.: Down here in North Central Florida, our climate is similar to the Georgia coastal plain. Our sandy soils rarely freeze at all, and then only about an inch, so a good mulch will keep the ground from freezing. I'd suggest you try an early crop with a heavy mulch. If you do get a freeze between now and January that damages the mulched plants, you still have time to get in a second crop.

-Rich

Thanks for the advice, Rich. However, Mark would be in the Piedmont region and my garden is in the N. GA. mountains. We go down to single digits some winters up there. Here in Atlanta it can go into the teens. We had five snows, one with eight days of snow on the ground, last winter. We both deal with heavy acid clay soils that are not ideal for alliums in wet weather. Sets, not starts, to my knowledge are planted in Fall above zone 8 unless you are looking for green onions grown from seed. Georgia production onions are grown way south of us.

In 9a you should have no problem. The short day onions both the grano and granex were developed in Texas. In the Georgia onion country You rarely see any seeding, and the harvest begins in late March finishes in early May. All yellow granex type hybrids, but about 2 dozen approved cultivars which vary in maturity date.

I have never heard of the sweet short day onions succeeding from fall planting where the ground freezes. OTOH, it may be too far south for long day varieties. I would be interested to know your results.

I did keep a garden in Athens, GA for the years I was in school there - basically the same climate and soil as Atlanta, where I still have family - but I never tried bulb onions. I mostly remember the winter ice storms, and occasional snow. The red clay in that area is so dense it made growing any winter root crop a challenge, because once it got really wet it could stay soggy for weeks. The best I could do with the limited time and resources I had available was broccoli, Brussels sprouts, collards, herbs (sage grew and self-sowed like a weed); and during especially lucky years when the temps hovered between 50 and 32 long enough I was able to get leaf lettuce, romaine and snow peas. That was a LONG time ago!

-Rich

Perhaps I was not clear. We grow long day sets in Fall and intermediate or long day starts beginning as early as March for harvest in June and July. I have not grown onions in years except for Egyptian onions, true scallions and leeks. I'm giving it a try this year though.

Mark, thanks for the grower info. and, as always, thanks for sharing your expertise, Farmerdill.

I might add that I grew my onions in patented Earthboxes, which are basically portable raised beds with built in reservoirs.

Before I knew better, I was dragging them back and forth onto the patio to protect them from our mild frosts. Now, I see the onions can handle our temps with no sweat (pun intended).

They actually liked our southern cold snaps.

I suspect alliums convert starches to sugars as a response to cold just like brassicas do. The resulting simple sugars act as antifreeze to stop the formation of ice crystals that would destroy the cells.

-Rich