Potato Onions and True Potato Onion Seed TPOS

[reed]

I also do a lot of weeding kneeling down or actually sitting on the ground if space permits. I have some super-duper knee pads from a yard sale that I think are made for concrete finishers. They are filled with some kind of gel substance, very cushy. The straps are a pain to use so I duct tape them to my pants leg. I have a large collection of long and short handled hoes of varying sizes and shapes that I keep nice and sharp.

I find if I let the weeds get to pretty good size in spring they help camouflage young plants against lots of critters and then serve as mulch. Corn, tomatoes and other things that are barely visible seem to explode after the weeding is done and then the weeds don't come back much till the next spring. Seems like a lot of work but it mostly has to only be done once per season.

Back to TPOS, mine are growing nicely, some getting pretty big and appear to be starting to multiply. Hard to resist plucking some out to try as green onions. I'll get some pictures of them posted one of these days. 

[richardw]

Jun 10, 2017 7:32:01 GMT -5 toomanyirons said:

I weed an area, then I run into the house, get the camera, and take a quick photo of the area before they all come back. LOL




Hope your weeds dont that fast that you have to run to get your camera

[reed]

Here is one of my TPOS plants, it is a spring rather than fall planted one. I think it is dividing into multiple bulbs as are several others. I choose it cause it is one of the largest. Don't know if that is due to genetics or environment. Those are some of my seed grown dahlias from Joseph Lofthouse in the foreground.  

[davidp]

A significant number of my TPOS plants are growing out as divisions, numerous doubles, a fair amount of triples, several quads, and even one fiver. This is my first season growing these, and I'd been led to believe that plants grown from true seed produce only a single (largish) bulb. Supposedly, only after planting that single bulb does it produce multiples. If this has happened to others, what is your experience with subsequent plantings of multiples vs. single bulbs in the following generation?

BTW, one important thing to note here: MOST divisions (but not all) are occurring with the earliest sown plants. To explain: I got true seed from Kelly Winterton last fall. As an experiment, I decided to start them indoors under grow-lights in monthly batches. So, one batch started in November, one December, one January, one February, one March. The first 4 batches went from the grow-lights into the greenhouse in late February, and all batches were planted out into the beds in mid-April. I started noticing the divisions appearing in early May, and by now even more have been produced. However, it is the earliest-sown plants (November, December, and January) that have thrown the most divisions (see photos below). Any theories out there?

BTW, I have 250+ Green Mountain TPOS growing now, along with 25 SESE Landrace TPOS, and 20 Dakota Landrace TPOS. Also, from true seed, I have 50 Dutch Red Shallot and 20 Pikant Shallot. The seed for the DR shallot I got from KW. The Pikant shallot I originally purchased from a seed company and have been growing for a number of years. Then, last year one patch of it inexplicably flowered and I got enough viable seed to grow out the 20 plant I have now. I'm getting red, white, and deep purple colors so far, and am excited about this new strain.

Okay, so I tried attaching some photos of my plants, however, even though they are below the 1MB attachment limit each, I'm getting the following error message:

Error: This forum has exceeded its attachment space limit. Your file cannot be uploaded.

[mjc]

The earliest sown seeds are probably behaving as if they've already gone through one growing season, due to the fact that you 'forced' them by growing them all season long under lights...when they are normally dormant.

If that's the case, then dividing like that is perfectly normal, because they divide during the second 'season'. In many ways, 'perennial' onions still hold onto many biennial traits. Also, after that initial growing from seed, replanting bulbs/divisions isn't really a 'generation' as it is clonal propagation.

[davidp]

Jun 19, 2017 17:16:02 GMT -5 mjc said:

The earliest sown seeds are probably behaving as if they've already gone through one growing season, due to the fact that you 'forced' them by growing them all season long under lights...when they are normally dormant.

If that's the case, then dividing like that is perfectly normal, because they divide during the second 'season'. In many ways, 'perennial' onions still hold onto many biennial traits. Also, after that initial growing from seed, replanting bulbs/divisions isn't really a 'generation' as it is clonal propagation.

Thanks, MJC, that's actually an excellent analysis -- because of the extensive time under grow-lights, they must have had their 'normal' growing patterns altered. So, projecting this theory forward -- if I want to build up my stock of bulbs to plant the next season, I can simply start the true seed in the fall, say November again, and the resultant production of multiples will give me significantly more bulbs to plant the following spring. A great way to boost plantable stock in a shorter time period.

Here's another try at sending pics:





Nope, no go. I'm trying to post from Flikr, and the BBCode is in the HTML, but it's not posting the images.

[reed]

I direct seeded some last fall and planted some in flats this spring. Most of both groups are dividing with some of the biggest being the spring started ones. That's probably cause the fall planted ones got over run by weeds for a while.

I'm not sure what they will do but figure if they start dying down later in the summer like most other onions I will dig them up, cure for a little while and replant in fall. Actually I may just leave some where they are and see what happens next year, maybe they will bloom if left crowded and on their own.

[davidp]

Jun 20, 2017 9:43:52 GMT -5 toomanyirons said:

davidp maybe your photos are formatted too large...

Yes, I've tried again with no luck.
All three photos are formatted in size between 550KB and 650KB, well under the 1MB size limit.
The are all hosted on Flikr.
The BBCode shows the correct URL.
I'm getting no error messages when posting.
But they won't show up in either Preview or Post.
I'm stumped.

[mjc]

Try making them 800 pixels or less on the longest dimension...

[reed]

Not sure about Flikr but Photobucket can be a little uncooperative. Try viewing the image in Flikr and see if it will let you right click and copy the precise URL instead of using whatever share options it has. If so you can just paste it in using the little insert image button in preview. 

[davidp]

Well, I tried all of your suggestions, resized the photos several times, but it just doesn't like my pics for some reason.
Guess this will be an internet first for me: unable to post any photos of my plants on a gardening forum.
But, all the other ones still like me!   ;>)
(sigh) Oh well, I'll just have to be satisfied here by describing them to you.

[kazedwards]

Have tried downloading the tapatalk app on a smart phone? That's what I have been using. When you post photos they size it to large medium or small for you and also host. Makes it really easy. You just select add photo and scroll through your library and select. It's also really easy to read the forums. You can even follow treads and you will get notifications then there is a post.

[davidp]

Just a test

[davidp]

So, here is a test using the tapatalk app. Some photos of my tpos plants with divisions, doubles, triples, and more.

[davidp]

Test