Another lesson from this season: still don't understand the survival issues in the 'rounds' generation. I always have some losses, even with varieties that are already well adapted to site. My thought has been that it is due to their smaller size, but that theory was blown away this year. The Tallinn rounds from last year were really enormous. Certainly as large as my biggest porcelain cloves. So I was really surprised to see only six of seventeen surviving. It was not the location either, as some were in the back bed with the porcelains and failed there too.
The survivors are looking fine and large... what made the difference? Is there gene expression at that stage, and selection for survival of those awful winter conditions? I'm just not sure.
Last year the Siberian produced a much larger round outdoors than in the greenhouse, which is why I impulsively planted all the Siberian rounds outside and since I was out of space, decided to put Alexandra rounds and bulbils both in the greenhouse. Sadly not one Siberian survived! And they were really large rounds as well.
So my size hypothesis is completely blown.
In the pic, gap left by Siberian on the left, Kostyn's Red Russian (from cloves), and Tallinn with gaps followed by Chesnok in the bottom bed, Persian Star in the middle and Spanish Roja at the back; back row is Susan Delafield (from cloves) at the end and the rest are mostly Music. I didn't lose more than a couple of plants all told, not more than you could blame on chance, which is typical of all those grown from cloves regardless of generation.
I'm wondering if rounds are vulnerable when they go through that extra step of differentiating into a cloved bulb? And when does that happen, soon after planting in the fall or later?