Back in late October 2019, I reported on the grow out of 7 different onions; 6 yellow storage onions (5 open pollinated and one hybrid as a control) and one red storage onion, in this post.
I kept the 10 largest onions from each variety (except the red), and put them into storage in my garage pantry, where the temperature never gets down to freezing, but is otherwise unregulated. In short, typical of most home storage. The room tends to be 10-20 degrees warmer than the outside temp in the winter, and cooler than outside but warmer than the house in the summer.
The red variety, Rossa Di Milano, was a disappointment from the get go. I had poor germination, only harvested a few, and many of those were doubles, which generally don’t store well. The six I kept were sprouting by March.
This is what the yellow storage onion counts looked like. These are unsprouted onions left from the 10 I started with, in March, April and May.
| March | April | May | |
| New York Early | 10 | 10 | 3 |
| Clear Dawn | 9 | 9 | 3 |
| Yellow of Parma | 8 | 6 | 3 |
| Cortland Yellow Storage | 10 | 10 | 4 |
| Dakota Tears Yellow Storage | 8 | 6 | 5 |
| Newburg Yellow Storage | 10 | 10 | 6 |
Cortland was the hybrid, bred for long storage ability. So that acted as the control. Clearly Dakota Tears and Newburg were the winners for storage, most lasting into May, with Newburg the clear winner. Remember, the info on Newburg was “originally selected from a European commercial hybrid storage onion, it was reselected under and for organic production. The tightly wrapped, copper- skinned, spherical bulbs are known for their excellent storage life, crisp texture, and medium hot rich flavor. Newburg has out-yielded hybrids when trialed under organic conditions, making it a great replacement for the classic hybrid, Copra.””
In addition, Newburg had the highest brix (sugar) content and the best yields from my trials as well. So wow. Let’s hear it for Newburg. Given that it was harvested by September 1st, that is almost 9 months of storage. I’ll be letting the 6 I have left sprout and will grow them out for seed next year.
I found a few more open pollinated varieties to try out this year, including Southport White Globe and Southport Red Globe from Reimer seeds and a Sweet Spanish from Baker Creek (which is supposed to store well, so not a “summer sweet” onion like the Walla Walla’s, as far as I can tell. So the onion experiments continue.
© 2020 Miles Away Farm, where we’re miles away from being done experimenting with onions, and have some very cool bean varieties planted this year as well!
MilesAwayFarm
Miles Away Farm Blog 
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May 24, 2020 at 8:42 am
Tracy
Can you grow torpedo onions there?
May 24, 2020 at 9:43 am
MilesAwayFarm
Tropea, the Italian red onion shaped like a torpedo? Absolutely. I grow them every year. They don’t store long term, but I always have them for sale in the fall.
August 17, 2020 at 6:25 pm
Jason Simmonds
Nice work! I bought Newburg onion seeds for next spring after watching Old Alabama Gargener’s(OAG) onion series on YouTube. He was wanting to grow a hot long storage onion like he remembered from youth. As he was impressed with the results I was inspired to order mine from Adaptive seeds as well. Glad to see I got a good variety and now I can’t wait to try them. I’m wanting a good onion to grow while I build up my potato onion inventory. They are fairly small so not for everyone, but they have excellent storage and are hot and flavorful. The biggest advantage is no seeds! They divide like garlic bulbs so you just harvest, divide, and store until next year. I have red, and I’m working on a white and yellow. Thanks for documenting your experiments!
August 17, 2020 at 6:48 pm
MilesAwayFarm
Thanks Jason. Now I have to go look up potato onion!
February 2, 2022 at 2:50 pm
leonard Chmiel
Great information, thank you. I bought and planted seed of Rosa de Milano from Johnny’s last year, 2021. They’ve re-selected what they say has been gross degradation of the variety. We’ll see. I have 50 or so in conditions similar to your storage here in CO. And thanks too for the how-to of mixing organic fertilizer, it’s no longer a mystery !
February 2, 2022 at 4:54 pm
MilesAwayFarm
Interesting on the Rossa de Milano. I had better luck last year with Southport Globe from Riemer seeds in 2020. I grew some out for seed last year and will plant that this year. They did store better than any other red onion I’ve tried. We’ll see how they do this year.