Soggy onions

Another reason to sow seed.

Totty

I agree Totty, but the article says it can also affect seeds. 

The neck rot fungus can contaminate both seed and sets, and also persists in the soil on debris and as sclerotia (resting bodies). Plants grown from contaminated seed are infected almost as soon as the seed germinates. Spores produced on the affected plants can spread the fungus through the crop, but infected plants usually remain symptomless during the growth of the crop.

The bases of the older leaves eventually become infected, and the fungus spreads from here into the neck of the bulb. High levels of neck rot developing in store are often the result of factors during growth, harvesting and storage that favour the pathogen. These include:

Dull, wet weather during growth of the crop
Delayed maturity due to late application of fertilisers
Excessive use of nitrogen
Damage due to careless cultivation or an irregular water supply
Growing successive crops in the same soil
Harvesting during wet conditions
Attempting to store damaged or thick-necked bulbs
Storage of bulbs in warm, damp conditions

The above is an extract from RHS website.
I have myself this year lost all my crop, over 200 sets to neck rot. I did dried them in the same way as previous years, and had no failures at all, so I am putting this down to the fact that the sets must have been contaminated to start with. That is what happens when cheap stock is purchased, I won't go to the same stockist again!

It isn't necessarily the most expensive that will be best or the cheapest worst. The best crop of onions I ever had came from a cheap net of Turbo sets from Wilkinsons.  My onions this year weren't the best and I have had quite a bit of rot, despite growing in a bed that hasn't seen alliums for at least 6 years.

Thanks Trillium.  This is the first time i have had any rot at all. I don't think it is onion white rot, but just a poor lot of sets from my supplier this year, and / or they weren't dried off properly.  Generally the bulbs were smaller than usual.  I had to freeze some, but a few that looked OK are now showing signs of rotting from the neck.  Others still look fine.

I have only had my plot since September 2010, but others on site tell me my plot was empty for at least 3 years before that.   So this year's onion bed was onion free for at least 6 years, possibly a lot longer.   Plot empty long enough to grow 2 large sycamore trees in the middle when we took it over!

I did think about getting one but from what I have read to get one that is worthwhile/cost effective you need one of the bigger square ones with trays that slide in/out and sit in the work top. I just don't have the work top space! The smaller 'portable' ones  seem to have had lots of poor reviews saying that things took far too long, didn't dry evenly or that the machines broke very quickly. I am just going to have to hold out until we can afford to get the deposit together to buy a house I think.... (So by the time I am 70!)

I never put onion in my compost bin, cos I have onion white rot on my plot 

Onion neck rot advice

Practice crop rotation, and don’t grow onions for three years in soil where the disease has occurred

http://apps.rhs.org.uk/advicesearch/Profile.aspx?pid=747

Onion white rot is worse and

can remain in the soil for at least 15 years

http://apps.rhs.org.uk/advicesearch/profile.aspx?pid=226

Engineer, never put diseased crops in the compost because it will only breed more spores or bacteria or whatever. When you spread your finished compost, you will be spreading the disease even further. Few people get their compost piles hot enough to kill off the disease problems so either binning them or burning them are good ideas.

Shallots seem to store much better than onions, and if one does rot then it's a smaller loss.

It's easy to grow shallots from your own stock too, so less risk of introducing disease.

Onions seem more vulnerable to a wet season, and flowering, both of which lead to a shorter storage life. I don't bother with them anymore, and grow 4 varieties of shallot instead.

I did think about getting one but from what I have read to get one that is worthwhile/cost effective you need one of the bigger square ones with trays that slide in/out and sit in the work top. I just don't have the work top space! The smaller 'portable' ones  seem to have had lots of poor reviews saying that things took far too long, didn't dry evenly or that the machines broke very quickly. I am just going to have to hold out until we can afford to get the deposit together to buy a house I think.... (So by the time I am 70!)

I have a small round stacking one apples dry over night. it has the heating element in the top with a fan and a variable temperature. Very happy with it