Walking Onions, Catawissa? Red Top? Tree Onions?

[steev]

Back then a lot more little people were farmers.

[reed]

It's good some of this stuff is available on the web, probably be a good idea to find and print as much of it as we can. Just glancing at the link a little piece jumped out at me. Now with even larger commercial growing I bet they pay little or no attention to off types, certainly the machines don't. Who knows what's hiding in plain old onions just a couple generations down the road.   

"Formerly the supply of onion seed came from farmers who selected
seed bulbs of a uniform type year after year and in so doing established
a definite strain; these bulbs were chosen from the entire crop
of marketable onions, which permitted the selection of only those of
the type desired for seed. In so doing the farmers were practicing
selection, all bulbs not conforming to the desired type being discarded.
In commercial onion-seed growing, where the bulbs are
grown exclusively for seed purposes, it would not be profitable to
discard all those that do not conform to the desired type."


Since I'm interested in things that live through winter in the ground now is perfect time to collect up what I can and plant it. I  don't care about producing a uniform crop for market or storage if they rot but make green onions and seed that is fine with me. Maybe I should keep them out of the regular garden in case of disease until they select out the hardy ones and make seed. I wonder with those tiny little flowers how do you make onion hybrids? Is CMS at play? If so will have to work around that. 

[Joseph Lofthouse]

I felt unsettled the other day, because I couldn't find the onions that I had saved to grow seed next year... Finally I realized that I have already planted
them out into the garden. So I'll be selecting for winter hardiness. I've been meaning to do that anyway.

I think that most hybrid onions are made using CMS. If I rub my finger across a normal onion umbel, it gets pollen on it. The CMS onions don't make pollen. Sometimes, when I'm growing onion seed, an umbel will have low seed set. I presume that is due to CMS, therefore I don't save seed from those plants. Sometimes the cepa onions will have bulbils in the seed head. I presume that is due to CMS, so I don't save seeds from those plants.

Onions are a special case in the CMS schema, because sterility requires an interaction between the organelle DNA and the nuclear DNA, and the right nuclear DNA can reverse the sterility. So while I actively eliminate sterile onion plants as I come across them, I think that it's not as important in an onion landrace as it is in carrots.

[paquebot]

Reed, photo colors would have no bearing on actual colors. Same ones may look different from one computer to the next. The facts are more important.

I know that it seems odd that there have been probably at least 2,000 named varieties of onions developed in this country and none were for sets. Our University of Wisconsin database has nearly that many commercial varieties prior to 2000. An example of just how many there are is that there are 62 names starting with "N" and 65 with "R". Sound like a lot? There are 91 which begin with "S"! See why it is impossible to even guess at what is in a supermarket?

Martin

[reed]

That is quite a few. Glad I don't care about names. Redish colored onion that lived through winter and didn't rot in storage is good enough for me.

[walt]

Don't mistake lots of names with lots of diversity. Most or perhaps all those names may be very slight variations on a few old varieties. Or may be hybrids between inbreds derived from the same varieties. The law on naming introduced varieties isn't strict at all. Copyrighted names or trade names have no standards at all as far as I know. It has been 35 years since I was a professional onion breeder, so laws may have changed a lot. But changes in the law often don't really change things anyway.

[paquebot]

The database which I mentioned is not one of renaming existing varieties. They are varieties developed by breeders and released for growing. In many instances the database tells what the parents were. Rather than just link to the onions, maybe the database on all vegetable cultivars for North America would be an interest bookmark.

cuke.hort.ncsu.edu/cucurbit/wehner/vegcult/vgclintro.html

Martin

[reed]

I stopped by the grocery and got an assortment of onions to plant. I got three each of all the loose ones they had and a package of three labeled as shallots. I got another package labeled pearl onions but they just look like little onions to me. The white ones in the pearl onions package were partly rotted so I pitched them. I put one of each kind up in the spare room to see how long they last and will plant the others in pots. It will be fun to see what they do.

Since this thread is supposed to be about walking onions I'll try to steer it back that way by saying, I'm gonna try to get some cross pollination going with my walking onions.

[paquebot]

Reed, once those pearl onions start growing, you'll know if you have pearl onions or not. If they divide like a regular onion, they ain't pearl onions. Pearl onions don't divide, they only send up a single stem.

Martin

[reed]

Thanks, I didn't know if pearl onion was even a real thing or just a marketing label. What about crossing with the walking onions? Is that possible? This year the walking onions and the others did not bloom at the same time. I'm wondering since these are from big second year bulbs rather that spring planted sets maybe blooming will match up next year.

[paquebot]

The true pearl onion is more closely related to a leek. It's still grown commercially in parts of Europe but nowhere in the Americas. Pearl onions were a part of Southern cooking over 150 years ago as there are recipes which called for them. They were true onions. They are all but extinct but I know that they have been found wild in coastal Texas and Alabama and are two different strains. Down there, they are may get as big as a quarter. They would not bulb at all here in Wisconsin.

Martin

[templeton]

Back to topsets
I had a quick peek at my topset growouts. I'm growing one I've had for decades, a red one from raymondo, one from a friend which seems the same as rays, and one of my green mountain seedlings that set bulbils last year. They are all different, which is nice. Mine never die back. Ray's do. The Green mountain seedling of which I planted out the topsets is forming really big single bulbs, but no topsets, so far. Photos won't show much at the moment, just lots of green tops, but I'll post pics when there is something to see. The Green Mountain seedling is the most interesting, I would love a bulbil-based onion that formed big bulbs - like richardw's

[richardw]

Thats interesting that you have some that dont dead back.

[richardw]

I decided to pull the clumps that had thrown strongly to the Walsh onion instead focus on the bulbil/flower types, there's 7 clumps producing bubils which may develop flowers amoung the bulbils similar to that of the parent. But there are two clumps that are different to the others, the first photo is of a clump that has both the flower type of the welsh as well as bulbils, i will hand pollinate these flowers back with the flowers from the parent clones

 

This clump has no bulbils at all, i will keep the base bulbs and on grow these to see what happens next growing season.

[meganp]

Been a dismal growing season for my garlic, have had to cull lots of plants with botrytis. Been a mild winter and exceptionally spring. On a positive note, have just noticed flowers with swollen ovaries on my walking onions and without any intervention on my part!

20170102_103825 by meganp08, on Flickr

20170102_103521 by meganp08, on Flickr
20170102_103455 by meganp08, on Flickr
20170102_103415 by meganp08, on Flickr