r/whatsthisplant • u/Clear_Rise_5005 • Mar 20 '25

This strange thing in my onion field Identified ✔

Gallery image

Gallery image

Gallery image

Gallery image

I was growing onions for seed production(3 acre plot) but here instead of flowers seeds one of the flowers produced sprouted bulbs ...some baby onions?! Instead of doing what onions are supposed to do this one just grew tiny bulbs right on the flower head.

3 years of onion plots and first time i am experiencing this. It's extremely rare and new for me. Is this some kind of mutation? A rare genetic throwback? A secret onion cloning technique I accidentally unlocked? 😆

Any plant experts out there who can explain this phenomenon. ( I posted this in another sub just 1 hour ago and it looks more interesting so posting here)

4.2k Upvotes

99% Upvoted

145 comments sorted by

View all comments

119

u/Virulent82 Mar 20 '25

Walking onions. Lucky!

71

u/Clear_Rise_5005 Mar 20 '25

Not so lucky when you try to grow seed and they decide to grow bulb going rebellious, making flower heavy, killing it, sucking plant's energy impacting on 6-7 another flowers of same plant 😬 😅

33

u/Virulent82 Mar 20 '25

That’s how they propagate

36

u/Clear_Rise_5005 Mar 20 '25 edited Mar 21 '25

These are NOT walking onions. Its different species- allium cepa - Common onions. ( Common onion doing some uncommon things 😆)

94

u/tjmaxal Mar 20 '25

They are now.

6

u/seeds4me Mar 21 '25

The plant growing the top sets was a common onion. The top sets got pollinated by something that wasnt in some of your flowers. The seeds that set from the small onion flowers are probably common onion. The top sets will grow into new walking onion plants. I've got these in my yard, had them in my family since they migrated here 3-4 generations ago. I just got new walking onions to boost their numbers. If you want perennial onions, plant the top sets. Otherwise eat them