So here are some pics of my bulbil umbels as of today. We have a really short season so in the past I've tried several ways of growing bulbils from cut scapes, this time I kept them on the plant in the field after the others were harvested, and then lifted the whole plant with scape and hung them in my unheated porch to slowly mature. I had to put some collars around the umbel once they started to open, and yesterday I cut them off to bring inside, since the stems were yellowing and become hollow, and since the temperature at night is getting close to freezing now in the porch. They have formed skins on the bulbils which I found scarce especially with porcelains from cut scapes, and I'm hoping these will really cure properly with a nice skin on now that they are indoors.
It was interesting to see the bulbs on these are not necessarily smaller than what I harvested, since I left them longer in the field. All the bulbs which I trimmed afterwards are nice and hard and perfect quality afaict. So nothing at all was lost.
The first three are Bonavista (unknown variety) Music and Argentina. Porcelains. IDK about Bonavista but I think it is a porcelain based on the bulbils. They are just a bit larger than Music and Argentina, and the bulbs have a creamy wrapper color a little different so it's not entirely similar but porcelain it seems to be, early and large.
The fourth one is Kostyn's Red Russian, and these are much better bulbils than I got from cut scapes last year (first year growing up from bulbils). You can see how much rounder they are and different from the porcelain, a Marbled Purple Stripe.
Next are Persian Star and Chesnok Red, the purple stripes. The bulbils are very pointy compared to others, they have that characteristic at least PS does. Chesnok Red was one that didn't get a collar, and I'm wondering if that is why there are not better defined skins forming. This has been an issue for me with the porcelains in the past, that they made nice bulbils but no skins on them.
Last one Spanish Roja with nice red skins and large bulbils. When the scape split first, there were no skins on them but slowly developed. My cut Spanish Roja scapes didn't get eaten so they also made bulbils, and nearly as large as these - mostly they made fewer but almost as large.
So goes the experiment for this year, hoping to see nice skins and a perfect cure soon...
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