Onion Harvest 8/8/12

Today, I was able to wrap up most of the onion harvesting at Fox Hollow Farm.  Due to my resignation, I will not be completing the Broccoli planting this year.  I have been given an extension on the study and will replicate it again next year.  Just have to finalize the location. 360 of my 504 broccoli plants will be used in a study at Cornell Horticulture and Research Lab in Riverhead. The rest of them will be going into the home garden and to a friend who is putting up a high tunnel.

Used index cards with detailed info about the treatment area (SBG, Straw, Control) and if it was weeded (weeded, not weeded) and wrote weight and number count on back.  Took photos of the different harvests and will download them here next chance I get.

Without actually doing statistical analysis and just by observing, it appears that the onions did best in the straw treatment. This was true even in the areas that were not weeded. The SBG treatments areas yielded fairly large onions, too.  Since straw is expensive and also requires labor to apply, it might well be that though the onions from the SBG treatments weigh less, that it is more cost effective. I'll need to provide Meg McGrath (my study advisor) with all of the data so she can analyze with the JMP Statistical Software program.



A few notes to change for next year:

• Use one variety of onion, or at least of the same size and maturity date (the red cippolinis were likely not able to handle the amount of grain put upon them)
• ensure that the sunlight is equal among all areas (Trees at the south side of the field created more shade...an issue with other crops as well)
• plant onions seedlings of consistent size (When planting the first row of onions, I planted all of the onions no matter what size; as I saw that I would have more than enough, in the second, third and fourth replications, I chose a minimum size and planted those and larger.)
• order plants and don't try to grow them yourself; you'll have the number you need without worrying.
• order a storage onion variety
• Get a jig!  Dibbling 4,000 holes is tiring and probably caused some shoulder trauma as well.  (Ideally, I'll find a way to make a "roller" with the dibbles spaced at 8" each.)
• Put all the grain down at once in one area at 1" and do it fast.  SBG is really putrid smelling after a few days of hanging around.
• Weed more regulary and when weeds are still small.  Pulling large weeds greatly upset the SBG and likely allowed more weeds to invade more quickly.
• Keep a log of when the field was irrigated

All together, without including the harvest four of the plots (Row 1 SBG not weeded; Row 1 Straw not weeded, Row 4 Control not weeded; and Row 4 SBG not weeded) I harvested 846 Red Marble Cippolinis weighing a total of 79.79 lbs and 996 Ailsa Craig Exhibition Onions weightin 205.11 lbs.

Of note: when I started to harvest Row 4 Control (not weeded), it was obvious that the plants had no chance against the Pennyslvania Smart weed that engulfed them.  The few I had tried to harvest appeared to not change in size at all from when they were planted, and though it might seem pretty fruitless, I will harvest the rest of the treatment areas in the next few days.

Also of note were the large number and size of earthworms in the SBG areas.