S. Shrestha** .I.P. Gautam* and T.B. Poon**
*Potato Research Program, Khumaltar
**Agriculture Research Station, Dailekh
Abstract
Onion (Onion cepa L.) is one of the major vegetable crops of Nepalese farmers, but a little attention on research and development works of the crop has been focused. Different onion varieties viz;, Agrifound Dark Red, N-53, Red Creole, and Bemausami-1) were tested on station as well as in the Farmers' field for off-season production. Among the varieties tested, the most promising variety Agrifound Dark Red was subjected to further dissemination to Farmers field in Malika, Naule Katuwal, Bijaura, Chupra and Jarkot of Dailekh district with 8-10 farmers at each site. Different parameters on onion viz; plant height, bulb length, bulb diameter, bulb weight, days to bulb harvest, fresh bulb yield, green tops yield, bulb rings, income from bulbs, income from green tops, combined income from bulbs and green tops, cost benefit ratio, seed yield and days to seed harvest were recorded. Apart from these parameters, seed quality was also assessed. The three years mean results (2008/09 to 2010/11) revealed that significant effect of sites on most of the parameters was observed except in plant height and bulb rings. Similarly, significant effect of years was observed on bulb length, bulb yield, income from bulb, income from green tops, combined
income from bulbs and green tops, production cost, cost benefit ratio and seed yield excluding bulb weight, bulb diameter, days to bulb harvest, green tops yield, plant height, bulb rings and days to seed harvest. The highest off-season bulb (705.30 kg/ropani) was obtained in Malika with maximum income from off-season bulbs and green tops (Rs.42971/ropani) and cost benefit ratio l: 4.66. Similarly, the highest seed yield (31.67 kg/ropani) was obtained in Malika. The assessment of seed samples of the same variety showed relatively good germination and other seed quality parameters as compared to those of imported seed source from India.
Keywords: Onion, off-season, fresh bulb yield, green tops, seed yield, cost benefit ratio