Onions are one of New York ’s most worthful vegetable crop , but growers face a emcee of production challenge : Bacterial rot cut deeply into profits , and the thin muck soil that mostonionsare grown in is susceptible to as much as 1 understructure of erosion every 10 years .
Fortunately , the tool chest of result to these onion job is elaborate fast , thanks to promising research projects taking place at the Cornell University Extension . There , vegetable specialist Christine Hoepting is using a series of Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education grants to investigate new onion - growing approaches , from preservation tillage to mulches to imbed technique to soil fertility .
In one study , Hoepting found that abbreviate plant life space by half ( to 4 inches ) could reduce yield loss to bacterial rotting by 63 percent beyond growers ’ criterion . This could supercharge final profit by up to $ 258 per 100 - foot bed for fresh - market place onions . Using choice to black plastic mulch — which absorbs sunlight and can create favourable , affectionate conditions for bacterium — yielded similarly overconfident results .
“ A great deal of growers became aware of how they can manipulatemulchesand plant life spacing , so they ’re experiment on their own now , ” Hoepting says .
One of those growers is Matt Mortellaro , who raises 200 acres of onion plant for retail dispersion on his family farm in Elba , N.Y.
“ We ’ve increase densities of our transpose onion , ” Mortellaro say . “ It sometimes results in smaller medulla sizes , which can earn less on the market , but the increased quality more than make up for it . ”
Another unexpected determination helped Hoepting purchase a $ 10,000 SARE grant into a $ 220,000 grant from the Northeastern Integrated Pest Management Center . After noticing that onions grown in a low - lying area of one test plot bear disproportionately high damage , she speculated that nitrogen buildup was feeding soil bacterium . She ’s now studying the relationship between nutrient grade and bacterium incidence .
Mortellaro , like most of New York ’s larger - scale Allium cepa agriculturalist , plants most of his harvest in muck grime , which is copious in organic matter but very crumbly because it was created from drained wetlands . steer damage poses a serious problem under formal tilth practices , especially during planting season .
“ I ’ve find 4 - foot drifts of goo . It reminds me of snow , ” Hoepting tell . “ onion can be decapitated or pull properly out of the ground by strong malarkey when they ’re untried . ”
While many farmers plant protective windbreaks of barleycorn between onion plant row , the immature onions are vulnerable to wind damage in the spring until the barley has farm marvelous enough to offer protection . Hoepting compare minimal - tilth systems that entrust the residue of declension - planted oat and wheat pass over crops on the priming to a schematic organization that plowed the residue under . She establish the residue left from minimal tilled land protected both the soil and the onion , effectively forestall corrosion and ameliorate final profit by 9 percent compare to the conventional system .
“ It ’s right only for certain acreage , ” Mortellaro says , referring to a farm ’s most wind - let on theater of operations , but he plans to take advantage of covering - crop residue on 30 acres of his land . “ It ’s work to my economical benefit enough that I ’m going to continue doing it , ” he read .
