Walking Onion breeding

I picked up seeds for all the varieties of Allium fistulosum x cepa that I could get my fingers on with the idea of 1) generating a landrace with them and 2) breeding some new walking onion type creatures.  As many of you know, walking onions are hybrids of A. fistulosum and A. cepa.  But they make top sets instead of seeds because the hybrid is infertile.  I'm fairly certain that these grow by seed varieties have twice the number of chromosomes to enable them to regain fertility (they have a pair of chromosomes from both parent species so that the chromosomes can pair up during meiosis, which makes them a new perennial allium species we can help develop for our permies needs).

One thing I'm planning to explore is what happens when these tetraploids are crossed back to their diploid parents.  I'm particularly interested in crossing them back to shallots and potato onions just to see what happens.  I'm expecting them to become top setting onions like walking onions since they will be triploids...but I have no idea.  Maybe they'll retain some fertility and set seeds that carry odd numbers of chromosomes?  I'm kind of hoping to find some plants that top set larger bulbils that taste like shallots, but again, no idea.  Has anyone played with these?

Here are two that Territorial sells:

Green Tide
Guardsman

I also requested 'Beltsville Bunching' and 'Improved Beltsville Bunching' from the national collection for this breeding work.  Not sure what is improved in the second one or how it was selected.

Forgot to ask....anyone know of any other selections of A. fistulosum x A. cepa that exist that produce seeds instead of top sets?  3 or 4 varieties feels a bit light for producing a landrace from.

One thing I didn't know is that if you cut off the individual flowers, not dead head, of an Allium that you will get top sets.  What a neat way to make lots of clones fast of a desired Allium.....nice way to share too!  My interest in this case will be in doing this to the seedlings I get from my packets of hybrids to see how large their bulbils get and how much variation in that trait there is.  Then when I make a landrace from them I'll repeat it to see the same among the individuals so I know which ones I may want to do further breeding crosses with.  

I learn something new every day!  :)

Hello, did you make any progress on this? It's an interesting project to me.

Greg Martin wrote:One thing I didn't know is that if you cut off the individual flowers, not dead head, of an Allium that you will get top sets.  What a neat way to make lots of clones fast of a desired Allium.....nice way to share too!  My interest in this case will be in doing this to the seedlings I get from my packets of hybrids to see how large their bulbils get and how much variation in that trait there is.  Then when I make a landrace from them I'll repeat it to see the same among the individuals so I know which ones I may want to do further breeding crosses with.  

I learn something new every day!  :)

WHOA... can you explain that again. Is this ANY allium? What exactly do you mean by cutting flowers instead of deadheading?

Michael Cox wrote:

Greg Martin wrote:One thing I didn't know is that if you cut off the individual flowers, not dead head, of an Allium that you will get top sets.  What a neat way to make lots of clones fast of a desired Allium.....nice way to share too!  My interest in this case will be in doing this to the seedlings I get from my packets of hybrids to see how large their bulbils get and how much variation in that trait there is.  Then when I make a landrace from them I'll repeat it to see the same among the individuals so I know which ones I may want to do further breeding crosses with.  

I learn something new every day!  :)

WHOA... can you explain that again. Is this ANY allium? What exactly do you mean by cutting flowers instead of deadheading?

I actually read that somewhere around the internet as well (will try to find later). But as far as I remember the idea is, after the flower head starts opening up and you can see the separate flower bodies, you delicately remove them individually, leaving the "base" of the flower head behind.

To get true garlic seed people do the opposite: remove the bulbils that already develop easily, to allow for the flowers to mature and hopefully generate seeds.

Edit: I haven't tried any of that yet, only read about it.

Something I've noticed with my walking onions is that bulbils in the primary topset will often produce their own smaller set of bulbils. Sometimes instead of bulbils they form flowers. I keep meaning to investigate to see if there are actually viable seeds in there. I know there were a few seeds, just  not if they're viable. I had so many doing it this year that I was determined to make it a project...and then I got distracted.

Has anyone else noticed theirs making flowers like that? Any seeds?

Last year I got a potato onion seed head where approximately the lower third produced viable bulbils and the upper two thirds produced viable seed.  The bulbils were similar to garlic bulbils, not like walking onion topsets.  I set aside the true seeds, bulbils, and ground bulbs of that plant in case I want to grow it out.  I admit while I find it interesting it is of little value to me.  I have heard of several such events over the years occurring on standard bulbing onions.  My point is that there is a lot of pent up diversity and wild traits in garden alliums just waiting for an opportunity to express themselves if given the chance.

Greg, for the benefit of others including me would you explain what is meant by "Top Sets"?

Gred said, "One thing I didn't know is that if you cut off the individual flowers, not dead head, of an Allium that you will get top sets.

 

My walking onion produces a large stalk which my husband says "you need to pull your onion as they are going to seed".  I tell him they are not that kind of onion.

My walking onions produce two things: small bulbs or green plants growing out of that stalk.

Which are the "top sets"?

Anne Miller wrote:Greg, for the benefit of others including me would you explain what is meant by "Top Sets"?

My walking onions produce two things: small bulbs or green plants growing out of that stalk.

Which are the "top sets"?

Hi Anne, good idea!  I'm bad about taking pictures so I grabbed these from a google image search of top sets on walking onions.

Here are the aerial bulbs that form on the top of the plant at the location of the flower head that together form the "top set":


And here's a nice image of what Jan mentioned, the top set sending up a second tier of top sets, which is always fun


One thing about these small aerial bulbs is that they can be a bit of work to peel.  But if you pick them young, before the outer skin has toughened, then you can skip the peeling step.  Having said that, I haven't tried storing them before that skin toughens up and I expect they wouldn't store well picked at that stage (ok, frozen or pickled would be options) so I'm just interested in seeing how large we can get the aerial bulbs to be as a no dig perennial onion/shallot replacement option.  One thing that leads to larger top set bulbs is fewer aerial bulbs competing in the head.  Maybe making crosses with Allium varieties that only make a small flower head with few flowers could be a step in the right direction.  

Greg said,"But if you pick them young, before the outer skin has toughened, then you can skip the peeling step.  Having said that, I haven't tried storing them before that skin toughens

Gee, I never thought about eating them....

Guilherme Marques wrote:Hello, did you make any progress on this? It's an interesting project to me.

Last spring I planted a few beds of seedlings so hopefully they will do well this winter and grow into lovely specimens to work with.  Projects like this always make me look forward to spring even a bit more, if that's possible.  Today I'm typing with a nice warm mug of coffee while a blizzard is starting to gear up outside.  Storms like this also make spring that much sweeter :)

Anne Miller wrote:

Greg said,"But if you pick them young, before the outer skin has toughened, then you can skip the peeling step.  Having said that, I haven't tried storing them before that skin toughens

Gee, I never thought about eating them....

Yeah, usually I just eat greens as scallions because the aerial bulbs are so small.  Usually I just use the aerial bulbs to spread them in my landscape or to give to other gardeners.

Jan,

Not all walking onions that produce topsetting bulbils will also grow a second set of bulbils from the first bulbils. Most varieties only produce one "layer" of bulbils per plant.

If your walking onions make a second layer of bulbils, you have a variety called Catawissa.