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bower · June 11, 2019

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.
https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article.../75_3_236/_pdf
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.

June 11, 2019	#47
bower Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Feb 2012 Location: Newfoundland, Canada Posts: 6,794	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. https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article.../75_3_236/_pdf 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.