A Study on root growth of onion (Allium cepa L.) under storage conditions

A study was conducted under storage conditions to examine root growth pattern of three onion bulb sizes (small,medium and large) of cultivar swat-i as influenced by different durations of field curing (0,3,6,9,12,and 15 days) and root burning vs nonburning treatments. bulbs cured for different durations produced 17.75 to 30.90% roots in 90 days of storage whereas different bulbs sizes showed 21.47 to 26.68% of root growth. it was also observed that burning of roots of bulbs prior to storage resulted in decrease in root growth. on the other hand,bulbs after 105 days of storage showed higher percentage of fresh root growth such as maximum percentage of root growth was found after 15 days of field curing and the root growth decreased linearly with the decrease in field curing time. about 45.40 to 60.36% of bulbs showed root growth in three different sizes. burning roots resulted in less root growth than nonburnt bulbs after 105 days of storage. this native method has been emerged as lowcost,non-hazardous one,which can be recommended at local community level.