Company profile... and a bit of history.

Magnus Kahl died in early 1987 and later that year the property and the onion seed business were purchased by the Weddell Family. In October 1987 the company was incorporated in Australia and the name Magnus Kahl Seeds Pty. Ltd. registered. The Weddell Family still own and operate the company.

In 1993 the office and processing plant were moved to another property owned by the family at Metung, 300 klms. east of Melbourne. The company was operated from there until 2004. Following strong growth, the company was relocated to Lancefield, Victoria in August 2004. The new location is about 30 mins North of the Melbourne airport which ideal for shipping seed to markets anywhere in the world. At the new location the important activities of trialling, seed cleaning, drying, seed coating, packing and administration continue by skilled MKS staff.

In recent years a decision was made to specialize in the breeding and production of alliums. This meant ceasing sales of other products to concentrate on alliums. The reasons for this were threefold :

It is the intention of the owners to remain small, efficient and specialized. There have been wide spread mergers and acquisitions in the seed industry around the world in the late 1990's. As a result of this, there is a growing need for focused, professionally run small companies specializing in premium quality seed varieties. By having an intimate knowledge of our product we can best serve the interests of our onion growers. With such a narrow agenda, the company can concentrate on breeding varieties suitable for a very large number of locations around the world.

Since 1987, a large number of open pollinated onion varieties have been introduced, including reds, sweet, hot climate long storage and cool climate long storage types. As a result the intermediate day browns, whites and creamgolds offer some of the longest storage types in the world.

Since the early 1990's the company has expanded to include onion seed sales to many countries. This includes short, intermediate and long day varieties to a wide range of countries throughout the world.

In 1998, an association with a U.S.A. based onion breeding company was established to commence a hybrid breeding program. Since then the program has been expanded to include experimental sites in the U.S. , Australia and New Zealand. This gives the opportunity to use climatic regions suited to the selection  for various characteristics. For example, the program includes hard globe, long storage in Australia and New Zealand, processing types in the U.S. and over wintering, extra early varieties in a region with short day latitude and high altitude to give extreme bolt tolerance.

In 2001 this breeding company was taken over by MKS and the breeding program has been enlarged and diversified.
Breeding efforts are concentrated on :-

Processing varieties (peeling, slicing & dicing) Long storage, hard globe - white & brown High solids for dehydration - whites Sweet types - white & brown Many red varieties Over wintering (extra early) - white, brown & red.

The program will continue to expand, but with exclusive focus on onion varieties for a wide range of growing locations throughout the world. Both hybrid and open pollinated varieties will continue to be developed under the program. Seed production is carried out both in the Northern and Southern hemispheres and in a number of locations depending on the variety.

We offer a truly specialized onion breeding and seed production company to the industry worldwide.