Riverside Onion seed stock available

[jadecricket]

Hey all,
I've been involved in maintaining/improving Riverside Onion, a short/intermediate day yellow sweet strain. I've put in three generations worth of work to improve this in Southern California. Here's a few links about this work:

Riverside Seed Production in Southern California
The Onion: Riverside (video)
Culinary Breeding Network Variety Showcase

It's a great strain and the farmer who last produced it still grows it as his main market onion. Unfortunately, I just had to write off about six pounds or so of the seed due to low germination (onion germination really does seem to go quick, the initial lab test result of 92 percent dropped to 38 percent in about two years of time). This passion project has not translated into much interest from the gardening public or even moderate commercial success to keep it going. So I wanted to put it out there that if anyone is interested in continuing to work with this, I am happy to provide ample seed stock. Even with the low germ, there's plenty of seed to get a new population of plants going again.

Feel free to reach out to me if you're interested. 

-quin

[macmex]

Quin, thanks so much for coming here to present this project! Let's see if we get any volunteers. I am not current on the size of the base population needed for producing seed for such a project. How many plants are needed per grow out?

Again, I think this is a very worthy project.

George

[FrostyTurnip]

I’m interested.  I need to wait until late August to insure I am ready to grow them and to only move the seed when I’m ready to germinate which - in the past - I began the first week of September.  

Did your climate get cold enough to prompt the bolt or is this something  genetic to this variety?  
Did you pull them or leave them in the ground?  


I agree with you.  There is not enough activity for onion seeds.  Not many varieties available.  Short day is always a good choice.  For this reason, I am surprised they’re good in storage.  But if they are, that’s terrific. 


Here in Central Oklahoma, we reach a quasi desert state by late July or early June.  It is extremely difficult to continue the garden when it hits.  

[galina]

A dozen or more plants, not too many, as they can be spaced relatively closely. But the tall flowers are better supported with bean sticks and garden twine.