Screening of red onion genotypes for selection of good keeping quality variety

Onion is commercially cultivated and widely consumed as vegetable and as spices in India. A wide range of variability in bulb yield attributes as well as in storability is noticed. Onion is semi-perishable crop so that it cannot store for long time. Due to storage loss it cannot be guaranteed that whole amount of the total production is consumed by the people. It is estimated that about 35-40% losses are recorded in various process of handling if proper care is not taken in production and post-harvest management of onion. It is observed that losses are possible to be reduced about 15-20% if proper care is taken. The losses are on account of decay (10-12%) sprouting (4-5%) and driage. Weight loss is 20-25% depending upon the period of storage. In storage, a heavy loss noted due to sprouting and decay and these losses varies from 5-85% depending upon the variety and weather conditions. The effect of various cultural practices though is not very clear but some of the operations like soil, irrigation, nitrogen, potash application, chemical application, time of harvesting and stage of maturity while harvesting do affect post-harvest losses. Post-harvest factors like curing, sorting, grading, packing, storage and transportation are, however, the main factors affecting the quality. The experiment conducted at Nashik and Karnal during Rabi 2017-18, revealed that at Nashik the lowest PLW (19.04%) and total loss (24.73%) were recorded in advance line-845 and found at par with advance lines-704, 807, 849, 852 and 873 in respect of PLW and advance lines-704, 807, 826, 849 and 852 regarding total loss, however at Karnal the lowest PLW (24.92%) and total loss (29.76%) were recorded in advance line-807 and were found at par with advance lines-703, 704, 824, 826, 844, 849, 852, 854, check varieties NHRDF Red-3 and NHRDF Red-4 in respect of PLW and advance lines-703, 704, 824 and check variety NHRDF Red-4 regarding total loss at five month after storage. It is summarized that the onion genotypes recorded minimum total losses can be utilized for good keeping quality onion variety.