Bolters and twins in onion

BOLTERS AND twins are important physiological disorder of onion. Affected bulbs become light and fibrous and show very poor keeping quality. Due to bolting, weight of the bulb will be reduced and the woody stalk of the inflorescence remains.

Bolting may occur due to heredity, differences in variety, extreme changes in temperature, poor seed quality, poor soils, over aged seedlings and improper cultural practices. Bolting takes place to the extent of 50-80 per cent in early parts of rabi and later parts of kharif.

The developing bulbs are split or double or may be the formation of more than one bulb in a single plant is called as `twins or splits' in onion. The marketable quality of the bulbs is reduced due to splits. Such bulbs are also not preferred for dehydration or processing purpose.The experiment was conducted at National research for onion and garlic, Rajguru Nagar, Pune to study the effect of different method of planting on bolting and splitting of onion. It was observed that ridges and furrow method of planting was significantly reduced in comparison with flat bed and raised bed planting method.

The significant reduction in marketable yield was observed in ridges and furrows system of planting due to lower plant density. The highest marketable yield was obtained from flat bed system of planting due to more plant population per unit area.

K. E. Lawande & V. Sankar

National Research Centre for Onion and Garlic Rajguru Nagar, Pune-410 505 Maharashtra

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