starting onions... do they like a heat mat?

[sheeshshe]

I had some sprout and some not. about half came up. I had them on heat for a while and when they started coming up I moved them because I needed the heat for other things. the rest just arent coming up. I didn't think onions wanted heat to sprout... am I wrong? do they require heat to sprout? do I need to put them back on the heat?

[pondlady]

I do not use heat mats for Onions! It could be some of your seeds were planted deeper than others. I started 300 Candy onion seeds in Feb. There gemin. was not all at once. took about a month for all the seeds to sprout that were going to. Hope this is of some help.

[soil]

I never get 100% on my onions to sprout. that's why its best to plant a lot more than you need.

[sheeshshe]

I planted them the first week of march. I have 18 out of 33 that came up. is that a bad ratio? should I continue to wait you think? how long do I wait before I consider them hopeless? LOL! Hopefully they'll be big enough in time since they're being so slow!

[applestar]

I've also heard that onion germination rate is low and loses viability quickly -- best to use them us within 2 years or something like that. Not like tomatoes at all. Good luck!

I posted some photos of my onion starting experiment somewhere -- starting seeds every month since October or November. Note though, that one gardening book (I think Jeevons) says you can transplant your onion seedlings out when they're the thickness of "regular pencil lead."