It appears that onion seeds store poorly. Most lists say they're good for a year. So, when is a good time to buy the seed? I'm in the deep south so I'll be looking at short-day onions. Since these are planted in the fall and harvested in the early summer it seems that you would want to wait on out into July/August before buying seed so that you can get this year's seed. Am I thinking too hard on this?

Yep way too hard. Most seed is germination tested in December and labeled for sale in following year. In the case of onions to make sure you are buying seed which has been tested and packaged for 2020, you can buy from January til December and get the same quality seeds except that they have sitting storage. Pay attention to germination rates also, they can sell as low as 70 %. I got a batch this past year, that I only got 4 plants out of 1000. Vendor discontinued that variety. Onion seed does deteriorate fast. I don't normally, but storing in a freezer until planting time in September is probably a good move.

Thanks for the feedback Dillard. I'll figure on planting some this fall and see what happens! I need to go back and find where you told me how you get them started.

Found it!!!! The onion info starts there and continues on down through the thread for a while. Thanks for that info Dillard, good stuff there!!!

https://garden.org/thread/view...