Short- Day Onion Seed

Question from Kenny:
We have neglected to delve into the question of just exactly how do the millons if not trillions of short-day and other “Biennial” onion seed get produced each season on purpose. Onion seed is not exactly a storable commodity. Fresh new seed is recommended each and every year.

We are so involved in growing big sweet bragging onions that we can’t always see the trees for the forest, so to speak. What are your thoughts on the how, when, where and by whom tons of onion seed is produced annually. Especially those varieties we love and are almost forced to grow as annuals.
If I don’t get my seed order in promptly for my ounce or two of Short-Day Texas 1015Y Hybrid Seed. I get the notice “SOLD OUT” until next year.

Answer from Pat:
As I understand it, commercial production of onion seed is a pretty big thing right here in California—the low desert areas of Imperial Valley, plus also Sacramento Valley and San Joachim Valley are all big production areas for this crop. I’ve driven through these fields en route to or from San Francisco but never visited them. According to government documents, for the seed-to-seed system, onions are planted from seeds put into the ground from late July to September, while for the bulb-to-seed system the planting months are September to October. In both systems seeds are harvested from late June to early August of the following year. (So these planting dates would be no good for planting a globe onion since it would go to seed.)

I’ve visited flower fields of seed growers, but only once have I visited the growing grounds of a vegetable seed grower and never an onion seed field. As a garden writer I’ve gone to Garden Writers of America conventions and had the opportunity to visit the facilities of growers and hybridizers and their fields and range houses. It is unfortunate that much of flower hybridizing work has now gone oversees to South America where labor is cheap. I know about the business of growing onion sets in northern USA but it appears that onion seed growers have stayed here in California and not fled to South America. Yes,onion seeds sprout readily and thus spoil soon. It is not like carrots where you can keep the seeds for a few years and they’re still viable.

I no longer attend the conventions of the Garden Writers of America. That is all in the past for me, and I am still working close to full time writing books and giving talks and enjoying this now, but looking forward to other things in my future years. You say you’re an “old guy”. Well, you perhaps guessed I’m an “old gal” too, though one might not realize it at a glance. I only intend to continue writing books and keeping up my speaking schedule until I am 90 (8 years and a couple of months hence, which flits by pretty quick.) After that I mean to retire from writing books, but I will probably keep up this blog until “death do us part” (meaning me and my blog, my swain having flown away to fairer fields in the sky a few years ago.) After I am ninety I plan to spend my whole time (except while traveling) painting or maybe doing some sculpture again. I have not spent enough time on it in this lifetime. I’m passionate not just about plants and travel, but also about painting. Meanwhile life is fun.