growing onions for seed

[troad]

Can anyone explain this? Planted 4 small Red Candy onions last fall. Were left over from that summer and were starting to sprout so stuck them in the ground just to see what might happen.
All four grew into plants with multiple seed stalks ( 3 had 5 stalks and 1 had 4) yet when they were sprouting last fall there appeared to be a single stalk growing out of each bulb.
Anyway there are now several seed pods (?) with lots of seeds. Does anyone know what the seeds might grow into? Original plants/bulbs are a hybrid I believe. Any similarity to hybrid tomatoes?

Len

[Tracydr]

Depends. Is Candy Apple a hybrid?
I don't know if they cross pollinate with other varieties easily or not. I've had leeks that I left in the ground go to seed and start new ones.
I love allium flowers. The bees and hummingbirds really seem to favor them, too.

[bower]

Originally Posted by troad

Can anyone explain this? Planted 4 small Red Candy onions last fall. Were left over from that summer and were starting to sprout so stuck them in the ground just to see what might happen.
All four grew into plants with multiple seed stalks ( 3 had 5 stalks and 1 had 4) yet when they were sprouting last fall there appeared to be a single stalk growing out of each bulb.

Yep, the "multiplier" effect is not confined to bunching onions. Onions left in the ground late may split into two or more bulbs, as we saw with our late harvested onions at the farm this year. After overwintering, each of the bulbs on your plants put out its own seed stalk - great little strategy for the plant to make lots of seeds!

Originally Posted by troad

Anyway there are now several seed pods (?) with lots of seeds. Does anyone know what the seeds might grow into? Original plants/bulbs are a hybrid I believe. Any similarity to hybrid tomatoes?

Len

They'll grow into onions, you can be sure of that. Each onion flower must outcross with another, because the male and female parts don't mature at the same time. They can cross within the same flower head or further afield; they depend on insects for pollination. If Red Candy is a hybrid, the onions that come may be a mixed bag, depending how different the two original parents were (assuming no other onions are flowering in the area).
No reason they wouldn't still be perfectly good onions, even if they are different from the parent...

[bower]

Len, it looks as though Red Candy is an OP onion - I found it here on Burpee's onion page, and since the one next to it is "Candy Hybrid" I think they'd have some reference to RC being a hybrid or F1 if it was. "Red Candy Apple" is a different hybrid and it's always named as a hybrid or F1 wherever it's sold. Not the same onion as Red Candy.

That means your Red Candy seed should be true to type, unless there were other onions flowering near by at the same time.

[troad]

Bower,
Thanks for your responses. The multiple seed stalks from a single bulb had me wondering. I have some "Potato Onions" growing that produced multiple bulbs and seed stalks like they are supposed to but did not know what to make of an onion that previously was just a single bulb. Did not think the RC were a multiplier onion.
Will have to go back and see what it said about the Red Candy onion plants I bought from Dixondale. Maybe they are OP hopefully. I did have some other onions growing nearby this year but they had not gone to seed yet. Also the RC that went to seed were the only onions I allowed to form developed seed pods(?) flowers(?) except the multiplier onions that I grew in a different area. The RCs I planted were small bulbs from last years crop that I replanted last November. Will try to get some starts out of the seeds. Will be interesting to see what comes up.
Len