Yield and Quality of Onion Varieties Under Direct Seed and Transplant Seedling

Abstract

The onion bulb production In Mexico is about 39,000 ha annually. Yield is variable according to the technological capacity and economic condition of the grower. However, The technology adoption (new varieties, efficient irrigation system and establishment methods) is increased during the last years. Traditionally in Mexico the grower use the manual transplant of seedling, that which increases the cost and time of this labor. The objective of the present Experiment was to evaluate Two establishment methods (direct seed and transplant seedling) and the effect on 24 bulb varieties. The evaluation was carried out in INIFAP-CIRNO Experimental Station in furrows with 1.00 m of separation among them, with double row of plants, the amount of nitrogen and phosphorus used were 180 and 80 kg·ha-1 respectively, we used the drip irrigation system. In this experiment we observed that the system of direct seed obtained better yield (18%), bulb weight (21%) and precocity (11 days) in comparing to the transplant methods, however in the first treatment the floral stem emission was greater (6.7% vs 1.1%) of the transplant methods. The white varieties with high yield were: White onion 214 and Cal 128 with 71.4 and 65.7 ton/ha. The purple varieties was F1 Cal 192 with 68.3 t·ha-1 and the yellow varieties was Ringer Cal 160 with 63.2 t·ha-1.