Dixondale Farms is an excellent source for onion growing. I think they are in TX. Use their proven information for long day, intermediate day, and short day information. You need to enjoy gardening and not make it difficult.

Lots of folks enjoy pushimg the envelope. The best way to determine day lenght in your area is to determine Sunrise and sunset times at summer soltice and calculate the hours in between. If indeed your long daylight is 16 hours, that will will trigger many of the long day varieties. Some of the storage types tho need 18 hours. I can grow some long day types here in Georgia when conditions permit. My limiting factor is heat. It is not uncommon to have triple digit temps in late June through July and onions do not like that. The real reason for growing short day onions is that they do best in the winter and are harvested in April - May before the heat arrives. Few short day types have extended storage capabilities under natural conditions, but they are available year round when controlled storage is used.

I live northwest Texas. The actual day-length (sunrise to sunset) gets to 14 hours on May 19 and drops below on July 23. Red River from Dixondale does well for me. It matures kind of late, is moderately pungent, keeps until February. Superstar, a white Spanish, intermediate day type from Dixondale is certainly not sweet, a heavy producer-lots of jumbos, and if cured properly will also keep until February. If you want to grow from seed Burrell Seed Company in Colorado has seed for Spanish types widely grown in Colorado and adjacent areas including northwest Texas. Johnny's includes the latitude of adaptation in their variety descriptions giving you some ideas about varieties that might be more suitable for "pushing the envelope."

Hey cool, y'all, thanks! And yes, I enjoy trying to do things everyone says you shouldn't. :-D Two, okay three, more questions, now:

Is there anyway to know that your onions have started bulbing, short of digging them up?

How long, on average, does it take to form the bulb once that part of the growth cycle starts?

If I wanted to save seed from the ones that do the best here in my climate, does anyone know of a way to do that - I mean, I'd have to dig the onion to know that it made a nice bulb, but onions are biennials...could I kind of dig down to look, and if it's going well just cover it back up? As long as I'm gentle, of course. I actually kind of love the idea of adapting a pungent, storage type to my inhospitable climate.

Are there plant health issues with F1s? I mean, I don't actually mind that they don't breed true...maybe some of those hidden genes would help an offspring do well in my climate? (Fair warning, I'm the type that plants 5 different kinds of corn in a block and saves seed from it all anyway...just to see what will happen.)

As others have posted many companies list adapted latitudes and DTM for onions. Be mindful of both.

It is not so simplistic as day length, which is a cumulative effect, but also temperature, light intensity, age of the plant, etc.

Onions bulb above ground. When things are going correctly you can see the bulb.

Looking for the one perfect onion, huh? :-)

Seriously, what is your primary goal? Flavor? Only non-sweet? Bulb size? Saving seeds while still having edible onions? Experimentation and pushing the envelope? Etc.?

There are easy answers for each one of those but sadly there is no one perfect onion variety that could even come close to perfect for all those goals. Don't we wish!

Seed saving for onions is a total waste of time IMO simply because the seeds have such a short life span/viability without expensive ideal storage conditions and even then it is still short. Plus, even when viable, yes there are health, sterility, and production issues with F1 seeds unless they are crossed under ideal conditions.

Flavor is as much a product of the growing conditions you provide - soil pH, consistent soil moisture levels, consistent nutrient levels, spacing, planting/harvesting date, proper planting depth (bulbs form above ground), etc. - as it is of the variety. So be sure to re-evaluate all those factors too.

Bulb size is exclusively a result of growing the proper day length so unless we want to move or invest in high pressure floodlights, we are stuck (so to speak). But we can make some trade offs - accept smaller bulbs to grow some of the long-day varieties (just grow more of them), change planting dates drastically and protect if necessary, and do everything we can to insure proper growing conditions soil and water wise.

Several have mentioned all the great info available at Dixondale Farms

in Carrizo Springs, Texas so if you haven't explored all the info they offer please do so.

Dave

Concur, Dixondale is an excellent vendor as is Browns. For those pushing the envelope, variety is limited in each case. Both are in Texas. http://www.bopf.com/Onion-Plant-Varieties/ http://www.dixondalefarms.com/category/onion_plants. You have an almost infinite choice when growing your transplants from seed.

Onions grow on top of the ground. If you have to dig to see if they are bulbing you have covered them too deep. That inhibits bulbing and is a major cause of failure among beginning gardeners.

Hey thanks for the reminder about onions growing on top...I've got experience with garlic, but not so much with onions, lol. Mostly b/c it's been difficult to find a variety I'd actually like to grow.

I like sweet onions, but I save those for things like onion rings or caramelizing for steaks/soups/etc. For everyday cooking, I prefer your regular, pungent yellow onion. I also know that sweet onions don't store for beans, so there'd be no point growing a load of 'em...there's no way they make it anywhere near harvest time the next year. From my research, that's the biggest downfall to growing onions in Texas - it's hard to find a variety that will save even six months, here.

As far as bulb size, I don't actually want huge bulbs (but I do want bulbs, of course.) At a certain point, bigger onions get harder to chop, which makes the chopping more dangerous. So an average, medium-size bulb would be just fine.

...I guess that means my overall goals are storage and flavor? Something I can save seed from and use in my kitchen on a daily basis. (I hadn't thought about just sticking an onion in the ground...but I guess it'd be just like a large set, wouldn't it. Huh.)

Anyway, thanks everyone, you've given me much to ponder as I make decisions for next year. :-D

So much of "storage life" is the conditions provided, not the variety. I mean sure some varieties will store longer than others in even the worst conditions. But ideal onion storage conditions would be difficult to create for those of us in the warmer south even when we opt for a good root cellar. Controlling for the ideal temp, humidity levels, and light exposure usually requires an expensive automatic system unless we are extraordinarily lucky.

So expecting any of them to last until "anywhere near harvest time the next year" is an unrealistic expectation IMO. Which is why we dehydrate and/or freeze so many of ours. They last for years that way. :)

Dave

Secret: I have an excellent husband, who also happens to be an HVAC contractor. He's got me a unit from a walk-in cooler, and he's going to build me a cool room. He says it should be easy to get it set for about 50 degrees. Till that happens, yes, my storage options are pretty limited. But once it does, I should (theoretically) have something like a root cellar out back. :-)