Farmers should harvest onions with care to maintain and enhance the quality of onion bulbs because when quality lowers the market share also lowers.
It is very important to identify the right maturity signs and harvest promptly, among these include bulking and exposure of bulbs, cracking of soil around the plant, drying of leaf tips, dropping of basal leaves and entire leaves wither and drop. Harvesting is done either for immediate sale (70 to 80 days after transplanting) when bulb size is 70 to 90 grammes or harvesting for storage, this is done due to low price on market, control market supply.
Harvesting process
Quality onions should have good firmness, compact fleshy skins, reasonable size and colour, aromatic, free of mechanical and insect damage. Harvesting s can be done with hand or tiny hoes, early harvesting when leaves are still green or partially dry is done using hands however with late harvesting when leaves are dry harvesting should be done using tiny hoes supported by hand pulling after that you gather them under shade and spread to avoid heat build up.
Thereafter cut off leaves at the neck region leaving 1-2 cm to prevent exposing fresh tissues to secondary infections and excessive drying.
Postharvest management practices
First withdraw watering to help formation of scaly leaves which reduces loss of water from internal leaves then store them under shade between at 27 – 30 degrees for 5 to 10 days to promote the shelf life of harvested onions however avoid trampling, overloading or vibration during handling to avoid physical damage.
Secondly carefully handle and pack onions to reduce mechanical damage, to add on that transport using large and during storage remove fallen materials and damaged bulbs and grade them after that store them sprayed on raised platform under dry well ventilation while observe clean store sanitation Conclusively ensure there i no roof leakage by monitoring and removing rotten and infested bulbs.
