I grow Copra's with enough only enough seeds left to make it through 2020.

They're the best tasting and best storage general yellow onion I've ever planted and they discontinued it. Pisses me off, so what do you think is just as good as Copra for taste and storage? I still have some from last year in storage that are still good.

How would you rate the " Crystal Dawn" variety you planted?

My Copra crop for this year are ready to harvest with many bigger then a soft ball.

I also grew Walla walla (right row by grass) to use fresh and give away.

I live in Minnesota Zone 4B and to get them this size I start the seeds indoors around the middle of February and plant outdoors the last week of April and then fertilize every two weeks after they recover from the transplanting until the first week in June then I stop fertilizing.

I love copra's and will miss them when my seeds are gone. (stored in freezer)

I misnamed the replacement, should have been Clear Dawn. Those seeds I saved and did not plant them out in the garden this year. Right now I have them under lights to see if I can grow my sets using the empty light garden. I got real good germination, and I have another packet left over for late next winter. I also put down the last of my old Copra seed and that didn't germinate anywhere near as well.

The Copras from the spring bed produced onions ranging from the size of the large store shallots to about baseball size. Considering that many of the sets were smaller than my little fingernail and they were actually put out pretty late, I think they did pretty good. I also intend to put out the smallest next spring to grow on some more. That seems to work for me without producing any bolters. Since I usually cook for myself, alone, I do not need larger onions.

The seedlings under lights are now showing their third leaves and got their first minor hair cut. I have them up high under a double bank of 4 4' tubes each; so they should be getting very close to full sunlight. If I get a usable set out of even half of them I will have enough for next spring and some to give away (I have two sisters who get first chance!)

I will be watching Clear Dawn real close over the next couple of years, specifically to see how bolt resistant they are as sets, since that is one of the Copra features I really valued.

I have about a 90-100 plant germination (quite a bit less than 50%) of the old Copra seed which is now sending third leaves and the first leaves are starting to swell a little. There is a much better stand of the Clear Dawn, which was fresher seed (from Fedco) which is quite a bit more crowded and a bit behind the Copra. Both have already gotten a couple of minor haircuts.

I need advice having never grown onion seedlings under lights before.

Should I thin the seedlings and if so how far?

How do I manage daylength? These are long day onions.

I have the lights on a timer; so I can make adjustments daily if necessary. My goal is onion sets of about 3/4 to an inch in diameter to be dried off at size and then replanted in the open next spring for next summer's onion crop. I am trying to fit this into the availability of the light garden between starting the tomatoes, peppers, etc for spring planting from last spring until beginning the process for next spring. I am really, really a novice at this. Any help or suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

This year's garlics and onions are all cured and going into storage very soon. I normally expect a harvest from sets and fall planted garlics in the following mid to late July. If this works out I will be starting the next year's onion sets in early June, and so have both an indoor and an outdoor garden going during the summer.

I had some scheduling conflicts last fall in getting beds prepared and then a very late spring this year; but the outside onion sets still got in early May. I didn't push them real hard. There is only me and I really don't want huge onions. Right now the onions I have started are inside under lights, where I am hoping to get a "crop" of sets totally inside yet this fall for next spring's outside. I like Copra which never seems to bolt no matter what size set I put back. These may be the last Copra I get to grow.

I know what size set I am looking for. My late mother grew all her kitchen onions from sets as far back as I can rememeber with very little to no bolting. Her secret was to plant as shallow as possible. Thinking back, I remember that her onions came out about the time we started digging drying potato vines. Potatoes and onions cured under cover in the north side of the roofed over corn crib.

Thanks for the timing schedule. I will put that right into use. I will also thin the Clear Dawn which I planted heavy not really knowing what to expect for germination. I have some 72 plug starting trays that I used from way back when I had a nursery in the backyard, and I will leave one or two per plug and hope that that is enough space. The seedlings are getting a diluted fertilization with every watering now. These I will push as opposed to my more laizze faire attitude towards the outside onions.

This business of discontinuing popular hybrids has me looking increasingly toward open pollinated. Copra isn't the first hybrid I liked that disappeared. I miss Green Comet broccoli, too.

I have hopes for Clear Dawn onion, which apparently is descended from Copra.

Sure thing, and what you've stated about "clear Dawn" it is open pollinated so I'm going to get some seeds and try them next year. I still have enough copra seeds in the freezer for one more year but even this year the number of copra seeds that germinated was about 60%, so next year it may be lower or even Zero. So, copra's if they germinate, clear dawn and just in case I'll do some Patterson seeds, the one they compare to copra.

Clear Dawn and Copra seedlings are now at 3-5 leaves and starting to show a little thickening of stems. There have been a couple haircuts but there are still leaves reaching over 6 inches. I am reducing the daylength now, too.

It is starting to close in on bed preparation time for the garlics that I will be planting later on. I like to do that around Labor Day; so it has a chance to settle and mellow before the cloves go in.

Hi Dutch. do you leave the sets in the soil under lights all winter or will you left them go dormant?

Next year's garlic bed still has some bedraggled tomato plants in it with a few green fruit still hanging. I will be pulling the tomatoes within a few weeks and then I'll till in some compost and garden tone and let the bed mellow for a few weeks before planting the cloves sometime in the second half of October.

I don't think I'll start any onions from seed this winter and just use Dixondale starts. I left a few dozen Evergreen white bunching onions in the garden this season and they are dividing very well right now. I'll mulch them a bit with shredded leaves this fall and then separate and transplant in March. I will probably start 50 or so leeks from seed in January. I grew about 100 this year and that was too many for our needs. We used all we needed fresh and I froze a few dozen as well.

Hi Jack,

The seedlings are inside, under very intense light. I am hoping to force bulbs to cure small enough yet this fall to use for sets next April. I have had very good luck planting back the smaller Copra and I have never really had a problem growing onions from sets. Copra has always seemed to me to be reluctant to bolt. I am hoping that Clear Dawn has inherited that. I have limited space outside; so I decided to try it under lights, and not have to worry about weeding or frosts.

Soon to pull my tomatoes too and prepare beds for garlic. My tomatoes grew huge but did not fruit out all that well. In fact I got some tomatoes and some sweet peppers that were definitely not what I thought I planted. Those were a couple of real disappointments. That plus a late spring and the major distraction of adapting to an entirely new organization, since the company I have been working for since 2000 got acquired and the department I was in got dismembered resulting in me having to adapt to a significantly new management style and significant changes in duties and a department of total strangers. Kinda messed up my summer, you might say.

Something even decided to pick off the little eggplants just after they set. Not that I like to eat eggplant, but I grow a few every summer, because I think the plants are pretty and I have a friend who likes to get the Japanese style long fruits.

Still no bulbs, set size or otherwise on those onion seedlings, but they are growing strong, some almost as thick as pencils already and most of them well over 12" tall, even on very long days.

My attention has been on winter flowers, however. I found a source for dwarf hippeastrums that were supposed to fit under my light garden (and they do and the bulbs are smaller too). Every bulb has been sending up at least two flower stems and the three I put in a 6" azalea pot each have sent up 3 stems. It is well past half done with the a maximum number of open flowers at about three or four inches each was 16. I didn't believe it would turn out at all when I put them in. I never had any of these before, but they are turning out to be everything they were advertised to be and then some! (How often does that happen! - not very)

Also some paperwhites in bulb glasses. It turns out that my cool kitchen is the perfect place for them to develop roots, but the flowers are still some time off. I have a couple of different kinds; some of which are supposed to smell nicer than the standard Ziva which some folks think stinks. I can't smell much due to my medication; so them I can still enjoy and they are the easiest of all.