Development of a possible new red onion

As a seed grower for Koanga for over 20 years one of the many seed lines i grow is the California Red Onion,last season i noticed a very unusual looking mutant plant,the flowers looked so different to all the others ive ever grown over the years.

As the season progressed it appeared that bulblets were forming,the only other time i had seen this before is when sometimes bulblets can grow on flowers stems in an among the flowers but nothing like this where there was no flowers at all.

I then thought “hey why not grow them and see what happens”,so i planted 20 of the biggest in April and within two weeks.

They made it through winter well and as of today all but 5 have grown into full size onions,the other 5 which has got me rather excited is that these have again now grown the same kind of stem on which more bulblets will form.

My plan is now to carry on experimenting with this line by growing the next generation in three separate blocks,Block one will be all the onions that didn't send up a stem this season, this will be to see if they grow a flower head or a bulblet head.

Block two will be another Autumn planted lot and Block three will be spring planted bulblets.

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Replies

  • No Kali,the only difference so far is size,i just want to see if the spring sown ones all produce a bulb and no flower stem unlike the autumn ones where 95 % grow a bulb,last year these grew 20 normal onions and two or three that produced a very small bulb and the bulbil heads

  • Very interesting richard, so is it right that the bulbils off the same plant are behaving differently because they are sown in either spring or autumn, or are different bulbils  showing different characteristics to each other?

  • 2170553464?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024

    Thanks Janet,i thought i had posted photos also,so ...

    • Yes, I've enjoyed seeing the photos too. It's so good that it's a red one. 

  • Kia kaha Richard and keep the reports coming in to Ooooby - I've followed what you've done so far with great interest. Each year I tick off more veges for which I don't have to buy seed, so it's extremely exciting to see this happening - missing out the seed stage would be a great advance.

     

  • Now that i'm into the third season i decided to expand the experimentation where ive done a autumn sown block,a spring sown lot and replanted some of the second seasons onions that grew into a normal onion but didn't send up a flower/bulblet stem.

    The photo is of the autumn sown block that is doing the same as the year before as in most forming normal onion and one or two sending up a flower/bulblet stem,hopefully they form bulblets and not flowers

  • 2170543483?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024Well this mutant strain just keeps getting more bizarre ,last season it grew bulbs on the end of long tassels but this seasons its growing tassels at the end of each tassel which hopefully should grew bulbs on each.

    • do you grow tree onions/walking onions at all Richard? because thats what they do and your last photo looks very like the way their topsets uncurl.

  • Wow - this will be exciting to see what happens! Hope you keep us updated!

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