Onion is one of our important crops and transplanted during winter season. It is commonly cultivated from November to February but most ideal time is December to mid of January. A new practice of raising of onion nursery in Sindh province and after transporting, it is transplanted during the monsoon season in Punjab province was common but it was not considered as easy crop. Now the nursery of onion is being raised on large scale in Melsi , Muzaffar Garh and some other districts of Punjab. In this video, we have highlighted the bottle necks and important production practices for successful cultivation of off-season onion which is transplanted during mid July to mid of August.
Onion is the most important vegetable/condiment crop of Pakistan. It is cultivated in large scale more or less throughout country. We have mentioned the summary of onion production Technology especially with reference to Punjab province. It has been mentioned that frequency of weeds, diseases and lack of storage facilities are considered as the major bottle neck in its profitable farming. As compared to the heavy and clayey soils, its cultivation is more successful in loam and sandy loam soils. Nasar Puri, Phulkara and Swat 1 are suggested as non-hybrid varieties. Out of a dozen of hybrids, Seminis 748 (Mehr M. Din & sons Gujranwala) and Melbak (Siddique Sons Faisalabad) are considered as the high performer varieties. Winner, Century and Jalal of Madina Seeds Gujranwala have also been performing well. October planted nursery from 1 kg seed of hybrids and 1.5-2 kg seed of non-hybrids is suggested to be transplanted during mid of December to mid of January. February planted onion produces less yield. 25-30 acres of onion may be transplanted from one acre of its nursery. Its transplanting should be managed at the planting distance of 4 inches along the sides of 2.25-2.5 feet apart ridges to grow 150 thousand seedlings per acre. In sandy soils it may also be cultivated on flat soil without ridges. Hybrid onion needs more amount of fertilizer than local/Desi varieties. DAP, urea, SOP, nitropotash and CAN fertilizers have been suggested for its successful production. Spray of Maxyl –ICI (mencozeb+metalaxyl) for damping off disease of nursery, Chlorostrobin-Tara group (azoxystrobin+chlorothalonil) fof stemphelium blight and Amista Top- Syngenta (azoxystrobin+ difenoconazole) for purple blotch have been suggested. Radiant-Arysta (spintoram) and Pirate-Swat Agrow (chlorfenapyr) have been suggested for the control of thrips. Hadaf-Evyol group (oxyfluorfen) has been considered as the best pre emergence weedicide for long shot weed control. Total expenses and income has also been discussed in this video.
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