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Onion Collection
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PGRU Onion (Allium) Collection 

/ARSUserFiles/80600500/Crops/Onion/Green onion.jpeg/ARSUserFiles/80600500/Crops/Onion/Red onion.jpeg/ARSUserFiles/80600500/Crops/Onion/spanish onion.jpeg

(Left) Allium fistulosum L. 'Kannon Negi' growing on the field, (center) Allium cepa L. var. Cepa 'Calred', (right) Allium cepa L. var. Cepa 'Sweet Spanish Utah Strain'.

 

The PGRU onion (Allium) collection consists of more thanOnion seed production 1100 different accessions. Alliums are typically reproductively biennial. Those accessions needing regeneration are chosen yearly by Dr. Zachary Stansell, geneticist and vegetable crop curator. The PGRU short-day onion collection is maintained by a partnership with New Mexico State University. In our collection, we house 4 botanical classes: cepa (onion), cepa L. var. Cepa (spring onion), fistulosum (Welsh onion), and tuberosum (garlic chives).


The PGRU Allium collection spans over 100 years of history, with our first accession collected from Greece in 1918 to our most recent addition from the United States in 2021. Onions hail from almost all parts of the world, and our collection is no exception with germplasm from Turkey, various parts of the United States, Japan, and Morocco. 

Visit the ONION crop page in GRIN-Global to find citations, descriptor data, and genetic markers. 
Read here to learn more about our research project on the regeneration of Short-Day Onions and PGRU's research on onion diversity! 
For more information on growing practices, head to the ONION production page. 
Looking for plant germplasm? Review our distribution policy for germplasm requests. 
Contact zachary.stansell@usda.gov for more information.

 

Onion Production in the United States

/ARSUserFiles/80600500/Crops/Onion/onion_production.jpgData from USDA NASS 

PGRU Onion Accession Distribution 1987-2021

Data from GRIN-Global