Kelly Winterton Develops a New Variety of Onion

Creating new varieties of plants is not difficult. The results can be very beneficial to
home gardeners who depend on their gardens to grow sustainable foodstuffs.

The results of a breeding experiment using Potato Onions have yielded for me surprising
results. In a very short period of time, I have developed a new variety of onion, which I
believe would be very beneficial to self-reliant home gardeners.

Original Potato Onions, left, and the new Green Mountain Multiplier Onion, on right

Most people are unfamiliar with the Potato Onion, which is also called the Multiplier
Onion. Potato Onions almost went extinct many years ago, when larger onions became
more accessible with the development of modern transportation and food storage
systems. Instead of the small Potato Onions, consumers preferred the larger onions that
we are familiar with today. However, these small potato onions have some distinct
advantages over todays larger onions. It was these advantages that endeared these rare
onions to my garden and household.

Unlike the common onions we are all familiar with, Potato Onions have extraordinary
storage qualities. A common onion will only store a couple months, depending on the
conditions. However, a Potato Onion will easily store for a year, even under less than
ideal conditions.
A self-sufficient gardener or homesteader would not be able to store his own home-
grown onions much past Christmas time, because by then normal onions would start to
deteriorate. To keep using onions into late winter, a bumper crop of onions would need to
be preserved by dehydrating or freezing. By late winter or early spring, if one wished to
enjoy a fresh onion, he would need to visit a grocery store to buy onions, which are
transported to the northern regions of the globe from areas nearer the equator.

But, if the self-reliant home gardener had also grown some Potato Onions, he could easily
enjoy fresh onions right through the winter and on into spring and summer!

Because of the availability of the larger onions in grocery stores, it is easy to understand
why the smaller Potato Onions fell out of favor.

In my praise of Potato Onions, I wondered if I could improve upon the small size, yet
keep the wonderful long-storage characteristics. The results have been very rewarding.

CULTURE OF POTATO ONIONS

Potato Onions are classified botanically into the Aggregatum group, while a normal
biennial onion we are familiar with is classified into the Cepa group. Potato Onions are
raised differently than normal onions. A normal onion is reproduced from seed. In
contrast, a Potato Onion is reproduced asexually, much like a potato, by planting a
cutting or eye from another potato.

The asexual reproduction of a Potato Onion is not the only similarity to a potato. When
you plant an eye of a potato, more potatoes will develop under the ground. This is exactly
how a Potato Onion reproduces. If you plant one of last seasons Potato Onions into the
garden during the early spring, by late summer it will have developed from six to ten
more onions in a nest around the original Potato Onion.

These new Potato Onions can easily be dug from the soil in late summer and stored in a
cool, dry place inside the house over the winter.

BREEDING THE LARGER POTATO ONION

Since Potato Onions are reproduced asexually, every onion in each successive generation
is a clone of the original. How then does one go about breeding a new variety of onion?

For a decade, all my Potato Onions grew to the same size and ripened during the same
week. Even the height of every plant was identical.

One fall, I left a few Potato Onions in the ground to see if they would survive the winter.
They survived just fine. However, these over-wintered Potato Onions all produced
flowers the following summer. I had never seen any of my Potato Onions flower before.
The over-wintering had triggered their flowering response. I wondered if the resulting
seeds would sprout.
The following year, I set up an experiment with my Potato Onion seeds. I planted one
row of seeds, and as a control, I planted another row of Potato Onion bulbs. The Potato
Onion seeds sprouted and grew, but were not like the control row which had been planted
with the original clones.

The row from seed only set one bulb, or occasionally a double bulb, but none developed
into a nest of onions. This difference was, in and of itself, noteworthy. But, the plants
from seed had set a much larger bulb than the control row. Since one of the disadvantages
of Potato Onions is the small size, and the advantages of Potato Onions is the extremely
long storage life, I wondered if the large, single bulbs of the plants from seed would store
as long as the smaller ones, combining the best of both worlds.

I found that these larger onions from seed did exhibit the trait of a long storage life. They
easily stored the whole winter and well into the following summer.

The following spring, I again planted two rows of Potato Onions: one row was from the
same bulbs I had grown out for a decade, and the experimental row was planted with
some of the very best large bulbs which came from the seeds. Again, the original bulbs
were completely uniform. But, the experimental row showed a multiplicity of different
traits. Some bulbs grew enormous top growth. Others went immediately to seed. Some
developed a nest of small bulbs, others a nest of large bulbs. Some nests had many bulbs,
other nests had only three or four bulbs.

Now, it was only a matter of culling the undesirable nests, and saving the most desirable
for asexual reproduction. I saved the very best bulbs from the very best plants for
planting in the upcoming season.

Through the process of asexually reproducing the largest, tastiest and longest-storing
bulbs, I have now developed a Potato Onion with very desirable traits. In the picture
showing the original Potato Onion and the new Potato Onion, the difference in size and
color is very apparent.

The original onions had a medium, dark brown skin. I have selected for a white skinned
onion, and some of the skins even display a greenish tint. Being so pleased with my new
variety of onion, I decided to name it. The name I have chosen reflects this
white/greenish color. The name also reflects the location of the birthplace of my new
onion, Mountain Green. Therefore the name I have chosen is Green Mountain Multiplier.