As the year rolls on and the global situation with COVID19 remains critical, we hope that all our customers are safe and well and have achieved some high quality production this season.
During this unsettled period we have been busy on a range of activities. Our main focus in the last 6 months has been centred around our breeding activities, which have grown significantly since opening our breeding site in Mildura. Due to this expansion we have needed to grow the breeding team. We welcome both Sabine Tanios and Veenus Atri as Junior Breeders and Trial Coordinators to the company. Their roles are designed to link the breeding outcomes with the outcomes required in the field by our customer base. Sabine and Veenus will be coordinating the day to day activities of the program and also monitoring and collating trial information from all the trial sites we have around the globe. This link will be crucial in understanding where our new genetics perform well and how we progress our future breeding offerings.
On a production front, we also welcome Matt Button to his role as Farm Manager at the breeding site. Matt takes care of all the breeding nursery and seed production activities in the Mildura area and will assist the team with the commercial OP and Hybrid seed bulb selections in the future.
Apart from welcoming our new team members, we have also launched our new range of packaging and will be changing over to selling all of our products by seed count in the next 6 months. The new packaging consists of a stand up pouch which will be used for quantities of 100,000 seeds (0.4 units) to 250,000 seeds (1 unit) and a pail that will be used for quantities of 1,250,000 seeds (5 units) up to 3,000,000 seeds (12 units).
Magnus Kahl Seeds 2020 Breeding Program
The 2020/2021 season of the Magnus Kahl Seeds breeding program is in full swing. The program, located in North West Victoria, is where the company’s short and intermediate day hybrid breeding takes place. The warm, dry conditions and sandy soils of North West Victoria, strongly reflect the global short and intermediate day target markets of MKS.
September is a busy time in the program, with the breeding team busy observing and recording the data of the breeding bulb production. Varieties are planted in both the short and intermediate day slots and then heavily monitored throughout the season by the breeding team.
During September, we also start to erect the breeding isolation cages, which is well before the seed breeding plots begin to flower. During the flowering period both bees and blow flies are used in the breeding cages for pollination, together with hand pollinating techniques carried out by the breeding team.
Breeding of both open pollinated and hybrid onion lines will always be a part of the fabric of Magnus Kahl Seeds, and we look forward to bringing high quality, reliable varieties to the global market for many years to come.
For any inquiries and information on any new and exciting material from the Magnus Kahl Seeds short and intermediate day program, please contact james@magnuskahl.com.