Effect of Different Planting Orientation of Onion Bulbs on Growth Parameters Relevant to Development of Raised Bed Onion Bulb Planter

Abstract

Multiplier onion is among the four groups of onions classified by horticulturists which is propagated through bulbs. Presently onion bulb planting is done manually by planting the root portion oriented downwards as pressed into an irrigated field. Generally about 80-100 man days are required to plant one hectare of onion at a spacing of 15 cm by 10 cm. The manual planting is labour intensive, highly drudgery involved and time consuming. There is need to develop an onion bulb planter possibly with four orientations. Therefore, an experiment was carried at ICAR-Indian Institute of Horticultural Research, Bengaluru to study the effect of different planting orientations of onion bulb on growth parameter. Onion bulbs were planted on raised bed 45 m long and 0.9 m width at 15 cm row spacing and 10 cm in-row spacing. The four treatments used were viz., T1) root portion up, T2) root portion down, T3) horizontal and T4) inclined. Experiment was laid as a randomized block design with 5 replications. The growth parameters namely i) germination percentage at 7th and 15th days after planting, (DAP), ii) Plant height 15th and 30th DAP and yield. The results showed that the growth parameters were on par in all the three treatments (root portion down, horizontal and inclined) except in treatment root portion up.