Strong flavour shallots

[Shallot Man]

For some fourteen years NOW I have saving my own shallot bulbs [Longur & Jermer] each year I have selected the largest and best shaped for my seed the following year, my aim has been to get larger but fewer sets on each clump, this has over the years proved successful, some five or six on each clump, the problem I now have is either my taste buds are getting weaker, or the shallots are getting very strong. Any ideas ! I suppose I could buy fresh stock.

[Tony Hague]

I should warn at the outset that I only paid partial attention in 'O' level biology.

I've heard before discussion of selecting garlic cloves to get a better locally adapted form, but how can it work ? Garlic, or shallots, saved from year to year are propagated vegetatively, just like when you take a cutting or graft a piece of apple tree to a rootstock - it has exactly the genetic material of the parent; there is no opportunity for exchange of genes as occurs in pollination. I guess there is scope for a bit of mutation, but my guess is that the shallots are substantially the same as they have always been, but your tastebuds are not.

Or there could be more to it that 'O' level biology didn't cover

[Nature's Babe]

Just a gut feeling really, but I think the nutrition in the soil feeds through into the plants, is your soil much better now than when you started ?

[Colin_M]

For some fourteen years NOW I have saving my own shallot bulbs [Longur & Jermer]
...either my taste buds are getting weaker, or the shallots are getting very strong.

I noticed a T&M catalogue which had the description "Robust flavour" against Longor, whereas the other varieties had a more restrained description (eg. "goes well sliced raw with cheese").

Why you never found them strong originally is a mystery, but it appears they're not now viewed as being as subtle as some of the other varieties.