Can anyone ID this multiplier onion?

[zeedman]

In the past, I've split & re-planted sprouted walking onions at the same time I plant garlic - which is now. The results from those transplants were variable: really good one year, forming large healthy clumps; but heavy - nearly total - losses last year. No doubt the exceptionally cold Winter played a factor; but given that walking onions are nearly indestructible when left undisturbed, transplanting at this stage apparently weakens them. Chances are that in your milder climate, carefully divided transplants should do well; but I second the suggestion made by philagardener - it might be wise to leave part of the patch undisturbed.

flowerweaver it is still too early to tell if those onions have long storage life. Hopefully they remain dormant & viable at least until Spring, which would be my definition of "long storage". The two bulbing multipliers I grow last until Spring in my basement, and for nearly a year if I cover them with hamster bedding. I'm testing some of the McCullar's ground bulbs this year to see how they store, both with- and without- the bedding; they look good so far. (The McCullar's bulbils, in a previous experiment, did not survive indoors until Spring.) I nearly lost the Fall planting of one of my multipliers due to Spring flooding, and want to keep some of each indoors over the Winter as backups... so long storage life is a valuable characteristic. So is viable seed, so you are fortunate to have that as a backup.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

This fall, about the 2nd week of October, A customer at the farmer's market told me that he was still eating onions that he bought from my father about 14 months earlier. That's my definition of a storage onion...

My strategy for growing seeds for storage onions is to harvest the onions in late August and plant them out towards the end of May, nine months later. But I only plant out onions that have stored perfectly for that duration.

[steev]

I thoroughly support the practice of working with some and leaving others to their own devices, as a way of both experimenting and perhaps cutting one's losses.

Given rain, I intend to plant patches of my various Allium seeds/bulbils, just to see what results; don't suppose I'll be getting leeks like RichardW's right away, but I've no idea.