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Onions flopping early, what should I do?

 
Mike Haasl
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I have a bunch of Patterson onions that have started flopping already.  Seems like it's a month early.  They're storage onions so I'm not sure if I should just pull them and start drying them or if they can still mature even though they're flopped.  

It's been a dry summer, maybe that contributed to the issue.  My other onions are Red Zeppelin and only a few of them are flopping...
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Christopher Weeks
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This is fortunate timing. I have a patch of potato onions that's doing this. They're all the bulbs I planted last fall while none of the ones I started from seed this spring are doing that. This hasn't happened the last two years that I've been growing them. I don't know if/how it's related, but none of the potato onions have produced blooms this year.
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Stacy Witscher
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They all still look very green. Mine are mostly brown.

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Mike Haasl
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I went to a Master Gardener's meeting this evening and other folks had theirs flopping as well so maybe it's a regional thing.

So.....  Should I pull them now and put them in a dry breezy dark place to cure or leave them out there a bit longer in the hopes they'll size up a bit more?

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Gregory Campbell
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I would leave them all in unless there's a need to use the space for a fall garden. I usually let the tops to start getting brown before pulling them out.
 
Mike Barkley
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As long as they stay green I'd try to let them grow more.

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Su Ba
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In my limited experience, here’s my 2 cents…..

…Once the tops have flopped over, the bulb doesn’t get bigger.
…If you live in a low humidity climate, the tops will die back and dry up. Regretfully I live in a very high humidity area, so I risk rot if I try to dry back the tops naturally. I’ve tried letting the tops dry up but ended up losing 20% of the onions due to neck rot. BUT I can only grow short day bulbing onions where I am, so things may be different for the long day, storage type onions.

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Christopher Weeks
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Someone asked about this phenomenon in a MN vegetable gardening group on Facebook and the consensus seemed to be that it happens on especially windy years. (I didn't look it up to figure out if this is really that, but that was their claim.) And folks were divided on whether to leave them be.

In my case, I inspected my flopped over bed and saw that they were drying at the tips and necks, and there was some black moldy stuff forming, so I lifted that bed. (And this may be entirely aside, or may be part of the same regional weather phenomenon, but my potato onions in this bed failed to produce flowers entirely, but formed nests better than the previous two years I've been growing them.)
 
Mike Haasl
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Well, the folks at the master gardener meeting said theirs were flopping too and they were harvesting them.  So maybe it's just a bit early this year.  It was dry and maybe windy?  They didn't all flop and didn't flop in the same direction so I don't think it was actual wind damage.  Maybe wind stress though...

I'm just harvesting the flopped ones every week and putting them up in the barn to cure.

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H Salem
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Thanks for sharing! Yesterday it was really windy in Saskatchewan and when I checked my patterson onion today i found most of them flopped over in one direction. The onions bulbs quite big, i am not sure if I have to leave them for 1-2 weeks in ground? We will have couple of rainy days coming ahead. Any thoughts would be appreciated!
 
Anne Miller
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Welcome to the forum!

I would say to go ahead an leave them ...

If they decide to go to seed or bolt then pull them up.

Invasive plants are Earth's way of insisting we notice her medicines. Stephen Herrod Buhner
Everyone learns what works by learning what doesn't work. Stephen Herrod Buhner

 
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