Ripening of the Onion Bulb and Infection by Botrytis Species

Abstract

THE first sign of normal ripening in the onion plant, it is supposed, consists of a local collapse at the neck, resulting in the leaf blades falling over on to the ground while several of them are still green and turgid; this can occur with plentiful soil moisture^1,2, though hastened by drought, and has been attributed (loc. cit.) to a softening of the tissues of the neck. The true explanation would appear, however, to be purely mechanical, and connected with the mode of development of the onion bulb. In the absence of bulbing, as in an onion plant growing in short days, new leaves emerge at regular intervals. Each leaf consists of a thin-walled hollow cylindrical leaf base surmounted by a more or less cylindrical 'blade' which is at first solid but later develops a lysigenous cavity. At the junction of the leaf base with the leaf blade a pore is found, through which the next younger leaf emerges. The neck of the actively growing onion plant thus consists of a number of very thin concentric leaf bases enclosing a practically solid core of growing leaf blades. The outermost leaf bases are dead and papery, but even the living ones have little inherent rigidity; the solid core is formed by the blade or blades of the one or two leaves next emerging. When, under the stimulus of long days, bulb development occurs, leaf emergence ceases immediately or soon according to conditions^2,3 and the three leaf initials next due for emergence become instead swollen bulb scales with practically no leaf blade³. The result is that after the blade of the last leaf has emerged there are no more to provide the solid core of the neck, which thus becomes a thin-walled hollow tube. This soon buckles and collapses under the weight of the green leaf blades, especially in wind or drought. Experiment has shown that removal of the central core very greatly reduces the resistance of the neck to buckling.