Company profile... and a bit of history. |
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| The Founder of the company, Magnus
Kahl, emigrated from Germany to Australia in the 1930's. After World War 2 he purchased a
property close to Geelong and named it 'Belevdere'. During the mid 1940's he commenced
selection of 2 types of onions - a white Spanish type and a brown onion with origins in
the Pukekohe Longkeeper varieties from New Zealand. Later came an early brown onion which
was called Belvedere. The white Spanish and Belvedere varieties survive today. 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.
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.
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.
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