TEXAS
A&M WORKING WITH THE U.S.D.A BREED THE TEXAS GRANO 502
To develop varieties better adapted to South Texas, the Winter Garden
station of the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station inaugurated an
onion-breeding program in 1933. |
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beginning of the Texas onion breeding program and the origin of the
Mother "Grano 502" which was in the parentage of all SuperSweet
onions such as Granex (Vidalia, Maui Maui and NoonDay) and the Texas
A&M;1015Y and others is told by Ernest Mortensen, horticulturist.
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He
and his assistant, Oneal Blackard, spent one day harvesting all the
bulbs that had matured in the whole field. This amounted to 4 or 5
bushels which were then stored in our station barn. Temperatures were
high that summer, so many of them rotted, more than half. They were
then sent to Greeley, Colorado, for increasing the seed."
"These seeds were planted for the 1940 crop and there proved
to be enough plants for one acre. In the spring of 1940, I was making
my customary tour of the farm and came upon this block of onions in
the midst of the rest with all of the tops down indicating maturity
at the same time. We found that this selection was 10 days to two
weeks earlier than the normal Bermuda types grown at that time. In
addition, because of the large tops, the yield was much higher. Large
bulbs were in demand in those days so the seed was soon multiplied
by the commercial seedsmen. The original field number was 502 so the
name Texas Grano 502 was first used and, in most cases, still is in
use. Officially, the name of the onion released by Texas A&M;University
in 1944 is Texas Early Grano. This has been grown in Central America,
Palestine, Australia and other several parts of the warmer regions of the
world."
THE INTRODUCTION OF THE FAMOUS TEXAS A&M ONION NAMED THE 1015Y
"When
Leonard Pike and Paul Leeper started their program, it was decided
to start selections from open pollinated lines and to make a few crosses
and select material for the development of new open pollinated varieties.
This decision was based on the fact that after all the work on hybrids,
THE MOST PRODUCTIVE ONION GROWN IN TEXAS WAS STILL TEXAS EARLY GRANO
502. There were earlier hybrids and different colored hybrids but
the most productive was Texas Early Grano 502."
"The pink root screening block was so that Leeper and Pike could
develop pink root resistance in their new varieties. Texas Early Grano
951 was grown in this plot and selected for resistance to pink root
for several years in the development of Texas Grano 1015Y. |
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