Here are a few fascinating factoids worthy of digestion:
Suffice to say that onions are pretty ubiquitous. In fact, onions are the third most important fresh vegetable crop on the planet. But where do they come from, who grows them, and how are they produced at such scale? You can be pretty sure they are grown in vast acreages in the usual monoculture fashion. A bit like this…
- World onion production is estimated at roughly 105 billion pounds each year!
- That equates to just under 14 pounds of onions per person per year on planet earth!
- Just in the US, people eat about 20 pounds each per year. This is the equivalent of over 450 semi-trailer loads of onions per day!
Suffice to say that onions are pretty ubiquitous. In fact, onions are the third most important fresh vegetable crop on the planet. But where do they come from, who grows them, and how are they produced at such scale? You can be pretty sure they are grown in vast acreages in the usual monoculture fashion. A bit like this…
Typical commercial onion field
Of course, growing onions under these circumstances invites threats and disasters, because it is a veritable buffet of vulnerable sameness for pests and diseases. But in order to get onions to market cheaply at the scope and scale that the market demands, the miracles of science and chemistry have come to the rescue! Here is small snapshot of the regime of chemicals typically used to address the inevitable problems arising from too-big-to-fail commercial onion production.
Typical recommended best practices in onion production
If you find that you cannot even pronounce the names of some of these chemicals, don’t worry. Nature itself finds them as strange and alien. Unavoidably, these chemicals have to go somewhere. Where do they go? Common sense tells us that they go in to the soil, in to the water table, in to the onions, in to the life forms that come in to contact with them and ultimately in to our bodies. Given the above statistics on human onion consumption, this is a fearsome conclusion! Yikes!
We at Seeds for Food would like to advocate a better way – a better way for both us and the community of life that surrounds us. That is why we are strong proponents of getting to know where your food comes from, and maybe even growing some of it for yourself. Getting intimate – up close and personal, so to speak. The upshot of this approach is that we cannot help but come to re-establish relationship with our food. Food ceases to be an abstract commodity. And we start to care. That’s a good thing!
This post is actually about growing onions and producing onion seed at a small, human scale. So let’s get on to sharing that process with you today at Seeds for Food.
Onions are allium crops belonging to the same family as leeks, chives, garlic, and other lesser-knowns. They are biennials, meaning they take two full years to complete their life cycle – from seed to bulb and back to seed again. Here in our temperate, high-latitude climate we have to sow our onions seeds early in spring to have enough time to produce vigorous, large and healthy bulbs. Onion seedlings look like this.
We at Seeds for Food would like to advocate a better way – a better way for both us and the community of life that surrounds us. That is why we are strong proponents of getting to know where your food comes from, and maybe even growing some of it for yourself. Getting intimate – up close and personal, so to speak. The upshot of this approach is that we cannot help but come to re-establish relationship with our food. Food ceases to be an abstract commodity. And we start to care. That’s a good thing!
This post is actually about growing onions and producing onion seed at a small, human scale. So let’s get on to sharing that process with you today at Seeds for Food.
Onions are allium crops belonging to the same family as leeks, chives, garlic, and other lesser-knowns. They are biennials, meaning they take two full years to complete their life cycle – from seed to bulb and back to seed again. Here in our temperate, high-latitude climate we have to sow our onions seeds early in spring to have enough time to produce vigorous, large and healthy bulbs. Onion seedlings look like this.
Onion seedlings sown in March of 1st year
It takes about 8-10 weeks for the seedlings reach the stage where they can be planted out in to garden beds. In our parts, that is usually in early May if weather permits. It is important to get them planted as early as possible so they can establish and start growing as soon as possible. Once they are transplanted and start growing they look like this.
Onion transplants in field
A few weeks later, with tender loving care and attention to weed competition, they grow quickly and look like this. You can see that by now they have been mulched with shredded leaves and/or straw. We organic growers are consummate improvisers!
Onion beds in July
Up to this point, the onions are growing vigorously, because the soil is alive with organic nutrients and a community of microflora and fauna that works in partnership with the growing onions. Most of the growth is “top-growth” in the leaves. At a certain point, once the onions have achieved their full stature, they are “triggered” by the signal of day-length to start putting their accumulated reserves of tissue into bulb growth. At that point, they look like this.
Onion beds in August
Not too long after this the onion plants will fully mature, and their top leaf growth will no longer be needed and begin to dry down. They will have fulfilled their biological imperative to form a durable storage organ to see them through the long winter until they can go through their reproductive phase the following growing season. At least that’s the story from their perspective! From our perspective as eaters, we now have our onions to eat!
But wait! If we want to go on to produce seeds the following year with our onions, we have to engage in a bit of esoteric alchemy starting at this point. We not only have to “cure” the onions to ensure their successful storage for eating purposes throughout winter, we have to select the very best, and enough of them, as candidates for seed production next spring.
That’s where the fun begins! One of the primary considerations in producing seeds is to select the very best, most “true-to-type” specimens for seed production the following year. This means conformity to varietal description, (what are they supposed to look like?), absence of disease (both growing in the field and later in storage) etc.
But what does “true-to-type” really mean? We can consult seed catalogues for that information and acquire a general sense of what varietal characteristics the variety is known for, like this:
“Rossa di Milano Onion - OPEN-POLLINATED Specialty onion with sweet flavor, good yield and long storage potential. The moment we saw it in our trials, with high shoulders and shimmering pink skins, it stole our hearts. Broad onions with a rounded, tapering heart shape. Plants are very productive and store well. A standout OP! Long to intermediate day · Stores well · 4" bulbs (Allium cepa) Days to maturity: 110 days”
But the best way to determine what the variety should look like and what traits it exhibits is to grow it for a few seasons and become familiar with it. We have grown Rossa di Milano, an open-pollinated heirloom red storage onion from Italy for many seasons, and we have concluded that it is an excellent onion worthy of both growing and producing seeds from.
So, at his time of year in March we rummage through our stored and selected onions from last fall, which we have kept safely in cool, dry conditions over the winter. Here are some of our onion sacks after emerging from storage.
But wait! If we want to go on to produce seeds the following year with our onions, we have to engage in a bit of esoteric alchemy starting at this point. We not only have to “cure” the onions to ensure their successful storage for eating purposes throughout winter, we have to select the very best, and enough of them, as candidates for seed production next spring.
That’s where the fun begins! One of the primary considerations in producing seeds is to select the very best, most “true-to-type” specimens for seed production the following year. This means conformity to varietal description, (what are they supposed to look like?), absence of disease (both growing in the field and later in storage) etc.
But what does “true-to-type” really mean? We can consult seed catalogues for that information and acquire a general sense of what varietal characteristics the variety is known for, like this:
“Rossa di Milano Onion - OPEN-POLLINATED Specialty onion with sweet flavor, good yield and long storage potential. The moment we saw it in our trials, with high shoulders and shimmering pink skins, it stole our hearts. Broad onions with a rounded, tapering heart shape. Plants are very productive and store well. A standout OP! Long to intermediate day · Stores well · 4" bulbs (Allium cepa) Days to maturity: 110 days”
But the best way to determine what the variety should look like and what traits it exhibits is to grow it for a few seasons and become familiar with it. We have grown Rossa di Milano, an open-pollinated heirloom red storage onion from Italy for many seasons, and we have concluded that it is an excellent onion worthy of both growing and producing seeds from.
So, at his time of year in March we rummage through our stored and selected onions from last fall, which we have kept safely in cool, dry conditions over the winter. Here are some of our onion sacks after emerging from storage.
Onions after winter storage
You can see that some have sprouted in the bags, and once we open the bags up to inspect the onions we will cull these “early sprouters” because we want to discourage that trait (early sprouting = poor storage) from our population of onions. Once we open the bags here is what we see.
Rossa di Milano bulbs for selection
The following sequence of photos demonstrates how we select what will become this year’s seed producing bulbs by the process of elimination.
too elongated!
This bulb is a fine specimen in all respects except that it is too long and elongated. We do not want to introduce this into our breeding population. So we will not keep it for seed production.
too squat & flat!
This bulb is also fine - it stored well over winter without premature sprouting and shows no signs of disease - but it is not "true-to-type" in terms of bulb shape. Too squat and flat - and we do not want to perpetuate that tendency.
Just right!
The bulb above conforms nicely to varietal characteristics - not too tall and not too squat. We will allow this bulb to go to seed this year along with it's similarly selected kin.
Premature sprouter
This bulb is not worth selecting for seed production because it is a premature sprouter, meaning that if we kept it in the population we would be selecting against storeability, and these are a storage variety after all!
Bulb neck comparison
Here is another example of what traits we select for and against. The bulb on the left has a thin, narrow neck which is correlated with timely curing at season's end (because they heal and dry faster) as well as superior storeability. The one on the right, although a fine example of shape and form, has a much thicker neck and we want to discourage the genetic basis for that tendency in the population.
Double bulbs - a definite no! no!
Another trait that is important to select against and therefore not include in the breeding population is double-bulbs or otherwise misshapen bulbs. So one's like those above will be rejected.
This photo shows another factor associated with storage potential...or not! The bulb on the left shows little sign of premature root emergence, while the one on the right is just dying to start growing again. Sometimes, even if the bulb does not sprout leaves prematurely, it may start root initiation which diminishes its potential for long storage.
Reject bulbs!
This photo shows some definite rejects for reasons cited above. Are you starting to get the picture that producing onion seed is a more rigorous undertaking than you thought? All in a day's work!
comparison of bulb shapes
Lastly, here is a lineup of bulb shapes that demonstrate there are no discrete cut-off's between bulb shapes. The taller, skinnier bulbs are in the foreground and the squatter, flatter towards the back. We would tend to select from the middle two rows for our seed production population. There is as much subjectivity and craft involved in seed production as there is knowledge of scientific "ground rules"! Perhaps we could recite "She loves me. She loves me not" as we do our selection!
That's pretty much it in terms of bulb selection. Although we started off with approximately 25 pounds of onions that made it through the winter, we were left with only 60-70 that we will allow to go on and produce seed, which is not quite as many as we hoped. Soon -as weather allows - they will be planted out in their permanent growing beds for the season. If all goes well, we can expect an onion seed harvest sometime in August, provided the gods are willing!
That's pretty much it in terms of bulb selection. Although we started off with approximately 25 pounds of onions that made it through the winter, we were left with only 60-70 that we will allow to go on and produce seed, which is not quite as many as we hoped. Soon -as weather allows - they will be planted out in their permanent growing beds for the season. If all goes well, we can expect an onion seed harvest sometime in August, provided the gods are willing!
some of the selected onions
This post was started with what are hoped to be some amazing facts about onions. Perhaps we should end with these equally amazing facts, which have to do with return on investment. A single onion seed weighs about 0.0043 grams (we figured it out!). A decent sized homegrown onion bulb weighs about 250 grams. The rate of return on investment, at least in terms of weight, is somewhere in the order of 58,000!! And that's not counting all the fun you'll have growing onions! Will someone please tell us of a hedge-fund that yields that sort of rate of return! Happy onion growing all you gardeners!
Onion seed & onion bulb
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