By Clint Thompson
Vidalia onion transplanting is either underway or about to be across Southeast Georgia, according to Chris Tyson, University of Georgia (UGA) Extension area onion agent.
Tyson said the prolonged dry spell this fall has allowed seedbeds to avoid disease buildup, a common concern if rains were persistent.
“All of our seedbeds that we’re growing right now for transplants are irrigated. We can water as needed on those. We can very easily get too much rain this time of year on seedbeds and have some disease issues,” Tyson said. “But that hasn’t been the case this year with as dry as it’s been. It really hasn’t affected us so far too much.”
According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, severe drought conditions are observed in the Vidalia onion region in Southeast Georgia. Once transplanting begins for growers, if the dry conditions are still present, they will have to apply more irrigation than normal.
“Now when we get to transplanting, if we don’t have much moisture in the fields that we’re going to transplant into, we’ll definitely have to water some. We’re usually going to water some anyway. But we might have to add more than what we usually do just because it’s so dry in some places,” Tyson said. “But for the most part, the dry weather has actually been good weather for growing seedbeds. It’s what you want because you have less disease pressure when it’s dry like that.”
Tyson added that transplanting season won’t really take off until mid-November.