Topic: Onions

[mickhindle]

Hi All,
After resigning my self to as big failure this season on the onion front due to none of then growing particully well, I had sprayed the area with weedkiller to kill off the rapidly encroaching grasses. I am now finding that these onions have sprung into life, and are getting to a respectable size!
Question is, 1 - will these be safe to eat, and 2 - should i spray the rest of my plot in weedkiller as a jump start to my crops(only joking on point 2  :P)

[chriscross1966]

1 Depends on the weedkiller
2 Unlikely :D

[mickhindle]

weedkiller is a glyphosate based formula

[BarriedaleNick]

Your probably perfectly safe but there are issues surrounding glyphosate ...

http://www.allotments4all.co.uk/smf/index.php/topic,53782.0.html - previous thread on the toxicity or not ..

[tomatoada]

Lets put it this way.  If the onions were mine I would not eat them.

[reddyreddy]

me neither  :o

[Chrispy]

The fact that the onions are doing well, I doubt they absorbed any of the glyphosate, but I would not like to take that sort of risk where weed killer in involved, so no, don't eat them.

[saddad]

I wouldn't eat them either...

Welcome to A4A Mick...  :)

[Robert_Brenchley]

I'd eat them - if they weren't covered, I'd suspect onion fly - but I wouldn't repeat the glyphosate if at all possible. I wouldn't use it on open ground at all, but I've been using it under my hedges because there's no other way that I can see of getting the ground elder out.

[Jokerman]

Eat them....

If we don't hear from you again, we know why.....

[lushy86]

Don't think I would eat them either if you sprayed actually on them, what a shame.  Welcome to A4A Mick

Lushy x

[chriscross1966]

From experience there can't be any gyphosphate in your onions, all the alliums are very susceptible, I've killed off entire rows with tiny amounts of spraydrift (ie spraying yards away with a moving barrier in flat calm conditions...)

I'd eat them, If they were transplanted seedlings then it might have been root-damage shock or one of several hydrological issues (too much, too little, either or both at the wrong time). If they were sets then I've no real idea (I don't grow sets and haven't done in years, though I might have a few from a friend this year...

chrisc

[Geoff H]

If the onions did not succumb to the glyphosate then I suspect they did not get a dose of it, which is amazing if you sprayed while they were in active growth. Glyphosate used to be thought of as a relatively benign herbicide but now I uderstand there is an argumant as to whether it really does break down as the manufacturers originally said.
Personally I find onions a very good cleaning crop. Some might be surprised at that statement. Basically because they don't cast much shade and the only way to get a crop is to get on your hands and knees and hand weed if you have a bad weed problem. I am strictly non chemical so no weedkillers for me on the food plot - on orders of the better half. In summer I always end up with dirty knees and a welly full of soil and small stones.
I think some commercial growers use black polythene mulch and cut slits , planting the onions through the slits.

[cornykev]

I really don't understand why you sprayed them, when hand weeding and mulching would have been the way forward, and no I wouldn't eat them.   ???      ;D ;D ;D

[mickhindle]

I hadnt actully sprayed the growing onions...... the onion crop had failed from last years over wintered planting, so the grasses that had grown up while i left that section of my plot unused were what was sprayed.....and then lo and behold....this autumn up cxome my onions....but i dont think they will be eaten :-X

[cornykev]

I think I misunderstood the question, how long was there between spraying and planting the onions.  ???   :-\       ;D ;D ;D