Bower, only suggestions that I have are what you have mentioned - early vs late, Colour - separate out the different stem shades of white, pink, red etc, size, which it would appear you have started to do by bud removal, and rate or degree of multiplication. How many bags you keep could depend on how many ways you want to segregate them. You could always look at applying multiple selection pressures considering that you will have multiple flower heads per most bunches by the looks of it.

Thanks Whwoz. :) Good point that I can just remove the flowers I don't want involved as it goes along. The bigger limit would be our short season, as the alliums do take a while to set their seed. I probably wouldn't be able to separate colors this year - but I can do that the following year by separating the bulbs that I want to put together in the following season, and planting some distance from the others.


I found some very interesting information about shallots last night. (I've been reading everything I can find about shallots for a week now!)

In Vietnam they have two distinct varieties grown in the south and in the north. The south variety has light green foliage, red bulbs when dry, and it is early to bolt and late to bulb. The north variety has dark green foliage, brown bulbs when dry, and it is late to bolt and early to bulb.
[url]https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jjshs/75/3/75_3_236/_pdf[/url]
Genetic Variation of Shallot (Allium cepa L. Aggregatum Group) in Vietnam
Pham Thi Minh Phuong, Shiro Isshiki and Yosuke Tashiro


So what I am seeing in my patch here is a mix of all those traits.

I looked at pics of shallots at harvest time and you can tell when they're starting to bulb because they open up in the middle and the stems start to curve. So what I'm seeing is that a few clumps are starting to bulb, whether they have flowers or not. So bulbing time (which I read elsewhere is daylength specific and genetic) seems to be independent of flowering time.

So I think I will have an eye out for the bulbing time as it goes along, and not be too hasty to remove flowers. I am not worrying too much about size of bulbs this time, if I get to taste some I'll be pleased. :)

bolting shallots
 

Just wanted to mention what I read about shallots bolting - cold induces it and heat suppresses it - and besides genetic resistance/proneness to bolt I also read that juveniles (from seed) are more sensitive to the cold trigger. I also read that large sets are more prone to bolt than small ones.


Our springs are so cold, I think to be successful in producing bulbs we will have to stack all the genetic advantage we can get plus also use small sets.:roll:

[QUOTE=yardn_gardn;736307] This is my first try with Zebrune. [/QUOTE]

Zebrune is an onion which happens to be more pink, it's not a shallot. Usually planted close to make shallot sized bulbs for commerce, otherwise it grows pretty gosh darnoodley big.

bower, those are some seriously dividing shallots, never seen such a variety.

Zipcode, yeah this is turning into a fun project! :surprised::D

Just to update, It is beyond expectations how much enjoyment I've been getting from this patch of shallots as they flower. I've been taking loads of pictures but rarely getting the best light - so often washed out color from high UV. Anyway here is my show and tell.
The color of flower buds (I mean spathes) is very diverse, ranging from very pale to dark browns to shades of pink and purple. All of the flowers appear to be (or become) some shade of purple/lavender/to magenta, and the bud color is not an indicator of petal color which is evidently not linked genetically to that of the spathe. So some very cool contrasts occur when petals emerge from the spathe. Big surprises include the dark purple flower in an almost white bud, and white petals emerging from darkest purple - these did however blush pink as they continue to emerge. Last shown is a small white flower emerging from a brown bud which split early - however larger spathes on the plant are producing lavender flowers, so far. Just so many surprises, and really a lot of pretty flowers when I don't have many things blooming for the bees.. I'm just letting it happen.:) The height of plants varies from 25-55 cm; the size of flower spathe at maturity also varies from 8-16 mm, and I made note of the number of flowers in the clump which is a pretty good indicator of the number of shoots afaict.

Some of the flowers are so adorable, I would plant for the flowers alone, but of course I have months to wait probably to see what sort of shallots (if any) I will get from them. Luckily, a number of the largest plants with largest shoots are dominating the earliest to flower group, so I will certainly collect seeds from those flowers for starters.8-)

Looking good Bower, some fun times ahead with that lot

One site says true shallots do not produce seed. Another says that all shallots will go to seed in year two."

I have planted various types of shallots.
They all produce seeds like onions.
not all single one of them
but some do. Just like onion sets,
bigger ones bolt.
This year I am growing from seed.