I
wrote a little about potato onions in a previous post. They
are an edible, perennial, heirloom onion that is near extinction in
Australia and I have always been rather fond of them.
Potato
onions rarely flower, when they do flower they rarely produce seeds,
when they do produce seeds
they are rarely viable. From what I have heard the small number of
viable seeds exhibit a tremendous degree of variability and tend to grow
larger, better and more vigorously than their parents.
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| White potato onions, not all that large but still great |
After
growing potato onions for many years in a few different climates I had
never seen one flower until 2013. Interestingly enough my everlasting
onions flower every year and never set seed, but they have produced seed
for the first time this year. The lady who gave me the everlasting
onions has had them for over 30 years, she has never had them produce
seed, so it must be the year for rare onion seed. I plan to plant this
everlasting onion seed and see what comes of it, but that is a story for
another post.
My
brown potato onions had been stressed badly the previous year and had
not divided well. Many even began to die off. This year was almost as
harsh as last year, it is more dry but not quite as hot. From the
surviving brown potato onions I ended up with 5 flower stalks. From
those flower stalks 3 flowered and then only produced unviable shriveled
dead seed. Out of the two remaining flowers, one produced 6 good
looking seeds and the other one is still ripening but looks as though it
should produce a dozen or more seeds. This is very exciting.
Hopefully at least a few seeds will grow for me.
| Potato onion seed ripening - very exciting |
While
the potato onions were flowering I also had regular bulb onions, tree
onions, spring onions, and everlasting onions flowering. I do not know
what these potato onions seed will produce, they may be potato onions,
or they may be a cross between potato onions and one of the other
onions. I will never be able to know for sure as potato onions grown
from seed are highly variable.
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| White potato onion - these did not flower |
I
plan to attempt to grow these potato onion seeds, unfortunately I have
no idea what to do with them. I do not know when to plant them, or how
to treat them, and there is really no one to ask. Potato onions flower
so rarely that experienced gardeners will argue with you that if they
flower then they are not true potato onions. At this stage I plan on
hedging my bets by planting half in February or March, then the other
half during winter or spring. I plan to plant them in pots to begin
with so that I can protect them a bit more than I
would be able to if they were in the garden. Fingers crossed that
something truly remarkable comes out of these few seeds.
I have been told by people who have potato onions flowering overseas that seed grown potato onions are more likely to flower than their parents. I have seen some amazing breeding work and the results after just 2 or 3 generations is nothing short of remarkable.
At this stage I will not be selling any potato onion seed, mostly because I do not have many seeds. If I ever reach a point where I have extra seeds I will certainly try to distribute them as we need more varieties of potato onions in Australia. I do sell potato onions occasionally, as well as some other perennial vegetables on my for sale page.
