[Lazy-al]

Hi all,

I am having a problem with some pests eating some of my onions. I have had to pull about 10 onions so far as they were looking quite ropey, when i pulled them i discovered some small beetle like insects on the affected plants. they seem to be attacking the roots and working up from there. the larger insects are about 3-4mm long and black. The back end of the body is ribbed and they have legs towards the front end. I did also notice on a few of the onions, what looked like the black bugs offspring which were smaller but a light brown or white colour. Any ideas?

[bigben]

I found one or two of mine with these http://www.uknatureblog.com/2010/04/spotted-snake-millipede.html

but many of mine had white rot as well so the bugs were probably not the cause of the problem.

[Lazy-al]

They didn't seem to be that pest, these seem to look similar to a devils coachman but a lot smaller, and attack the root area. i have taken to giving my onions a bit of a wiggle. if they look a bit poor and are not to secure i have pulled them and tend to find these little fellas eating merrily away.

[Lazy-al]

Update- after much searching on the Internet I think I have discovered what these little bugs are, I think they are springtails. I will confirm next time I pull a bad onion. If they do happen to be springtails then I'm not too worried as all the information I can find on them indicates that they just feed on decaying matter. In which case the onions I pulled were going bad before these little blighters got involved.

[mumofstig]

when they're loose in the soil, and you pull them up, do they have any white fluffy mould on the roots/bottom of the bulb?

My onions were getting loose and it turned out to be white-rot and once that started all sorts of little creatures seemed to join in the fun It was better for me to pick them all, slice and freeze, or have nothing usuable...Good luck with the rest of yours!