mashua

[mybighair]

Sorry to go a little off topic but on the subject of Ullucus; has anyone tried it as a leaf vegetable? I have read that it can be used as a perennial spinach substitute.

I'm hoping to obtain some from real seeds this year and intend on doing some selection work for leaf quality. I would also like to try and produce some true seed in the hope of finding some day length neutral plants amongst the seedlings. It will likely take a number of years, and a great deal of effort, but I suspect it will be a quicker rout to day length neutral Ullucus than that offered by tuber selection.

[orflo]

Graham,
I tried the spinach part of ullucus, and it's good. Off course, the more leaves you pick, the less tubers will be produced...But you knew that.
My ullucus flowered prolifically this summer, but no seed was set ( That is indeed the way to go for creating a possible long-day variety ) .
They always feel best when the summer is rainy and grey, as was the case this year. Therefore flowering was a lot earlier compared to earlier seasons, some three to four weeks.
I yet have to find out how good seeds can be produced , they are probably out-breeders, as are ocas. But hand-pollinating didn't work, and the flowers seem to be quite uninteresting for hoverflies and other pollinators. Oca needs a god mixture of flowers with different lengths of stamen, but ullucus???

[stevil]

Haven't tried the leaves yet. Have planned to grow some for leaf next summer. However, for a perennial spinach, I would think that its relation Anredera (Madeira Vine) would be more productive - the leaves of that are good.

Have you managed to overwinter Ullucus outside, so that it could be cultivated on a permanent bed?

[mybighair]

orflo

Good to know that the leaves taste good, it's also good that they like rainy grey summers as that's all we get here in Wales.

The papers I have read state that ullucus is an out-breeder, and that seed is not freely produced. A teem of researchers in Finland managed to obtained fertile seed, but they were working with virus free stock, so the reduced fertility in ullucus could be virus related. I believe they also used greenhouse cultivation to extend the season.

I don't think that Real Seeds is offering virus free tubers (yet) but I am going to try greenhouse production, persistence, multiple pollination's per flower, and hope for a lot of luck.

stevil,

I haven't actually grown it yet but Oca overwinters well here in a permanent bed, and I have read that the tubers are frost resistant, so it should be fine.

Strictly speaking, when you are looking for a perennial spinach substitute you only need the plants to produce leaves abundantly, so long as plants maintain themselves at a stable population level you are fine. If each plant can successfully overwinter one or two tubers you will always have your spinach.

I have looked into Madeira Vine and will more than likely be giving it a try, but it is less hardy than Ullucus and not recommended for my region as we do get hard frosts. It may be feasible with mulching but I always favour the lower maintenance option.

Besides, if there is one thing we never have to much of in our house it's greens, and as the saying goes; "variety is the spice of life" so why not have both.

[orflo]

I know about the paper that mentions the seed-production in Finland (but it's on a pay-site :. The tubers Ben 'realseeds' is offering aren' t virus-free , but they probably will be in 2009. Indeed, these viruses (ullucus is susceptible to quite a bit of viruses, 4 of them are quite common) don't improve seed-setting, and viruses can also be transmitted with the seeds, again lowering the production of tubers and of seed-setting. Some of these viruses can also be transmitted to potatoes (some oca viruses as well), after all, the plants originate at the same (big ) area.

However some ullucus varieties are more productive than others, more tubers and/or more seeds can be set by some varieties (not necessarily the same varieties).
One of the South-American gene banks selected about 20 varieties (I don't remember the exact numbers, but it's just an indication) out of a stock of 160 or more, these 20 produced far more tubers compared to the others. And I don't know about this bank, but cipotato does grow virus-free plants, but not all of these gene banks have these facilities.

I tried to overwinter them (even this year), but they usually die in January, it could have something to do with viruses, but I suspect the colder and shorter days and the mostly humid conditions combined with these circumstances are fatal. I'm pretty sure I could survive a plant in our living -room, on a windowsill, but it should have to be a very small one...
And take care: some papers mention ullucus takes -5 Celsius, this is NOT my experience, they die whenever temperatures are negative...

Overwintering oca is another thing, tubers can stand negative temperatures, although I mostly lose bigger tubers (who apparently are more frost-tender). So I just dig them and store them in the potato-room. Besides frost, they get eaten by mice over here....especially when there's not much left in the ground during wintertime...But I always get some surprise growth on last years bed..... ;D

[mybighair]

Thanks for the info on over wintering orflo, I will be sure to lift some and bring them into storage for winter each year just in case. I think that as far as true seed goes we are just going to keep trying and hope for the best,

It's funny that you have mice eating the tubers with you, they are not a problem here as far as Oca goes. slugs on the other hand love them.

Still, its all sent to try us.

[canadamike]

I wonder if taking cuttings in the fast growing meristems could not rid the plants from viruses like in potatoes?

[orflo]

A friend is working on getting rid of the viruses (he's in the UK), he has university facilities, and especially a growth chamber. Ben 'realseeds' and me have sent him all of our varieties of oca, ullucus and mashua. He'll breed them out and will try to eliminate these viruses, so we have at least virus-free stock for a good start in 2009.
We are working on a oca project to try and get rid of the daylenth issue. The first part was getting good true seed. Ben grew out some seeds and distributed them, the seed-setting needs very specific circumstances and flower stamens from different varieties, as I already mentioned in a previous post. (If anyone's interested in more, I 'll send a rather big pdf about that).

That was the first stage, growing out seeds. The second stage is growing out the seeds. Of all the seeds distributed, only two germinated! (And there were lots of seeds!)One at realseeds in Wales and one at my place. This plant did particularly well, producing 16 tubers, some big ones included, and producing another tuber from a cutting, one cutting is still alive over here, and one cutting was given to Ben by Patrick W , who met Ben during summer.
Next stage is to grow out these tubers, evaluate them, try to cross them with each other, and get some new seed-setting, hoping every time we will lose a bit of the daylength-sensitivity.

Meanwhile, I'm negociating with some people from Cipotato, in order to get their earliest producing varieties, their easy-flowering and easy-seed-setting varieties, in order to cross these with the earliest in our gardens (unfortunately cipotato's Argentinian oca selection isn't yet available, they still have to be examined on possible virus-infections). This could eventually lead to a loss of the daylength-sensibility, but it might take years and years...But, who knows, we could be lucky sooner.

There were already attempts , back in the 1800's to make these Andean tubers daylength-insensitive (so they could be used when the late blight in potatoes caused so much damage), but none of these trials succeeded. Some further trials have been done on and off, nothing worked...
There's a guy in New Zealand who managed to grow out some seed as well, and selected from the grown plants ('the yam man', in NZ, ocas are called NZ yams), he got some nice varieties, but still they remained daylength-sensitive...
And the story continues....

[orflo]

Here are some pictures from the 'seed oca', which is, off course a hybrid, but is usually reproduced by tubers:

[mybighair]

Thanks again orflo

Those seedling tubers look good; is production any better than the parent varieties?

Oca from true seed is another one on my list, and now that I have two distinct varieties to work with (one pink, one pure white) I can get started with it. I would really appreciate seeing that PDF file of yours. The more information I can get from those that have been successful the better.

I think we will all need to raise a lot of seed from these crops to find day-length neutral varieties, and as you say, it will probably take a lot of time and luck. But at least we are all working towards similar goals. And once we have that first day-length neutral seedling things will progress a lot faster.

It's also good to know that virus free stock is in the pipe line, hopefully you will see an increase in yield and greater fertility from virus free clones

Siting in this little valleys community in South Wales I look something of an oddball, tinkering about with these strange looking vegetables. I'm sure half the people on our allotment think I've lost my mind.

Thankfully we have somewhere like this to come and meet all the other crazy folk playing cupid in their veggie patch. It's nice to know I'm not the only person pursuing vegetable fueled flights of fancy.

[hiven]

Orflo, I am reading your NZ Yam/Oca story with great interest, what is the continued story... ? continue please...

Dec 27, 2008 13:09:58 GMT -5 orflo said:

A friend is working on getting rid of the viruses (he's in the UK), he has university facilities, and especially a growth chamber. Ben 'realseeds' and me have sent him all of our varieties of oca, ullucus and mashua. He'll breed them out and will try to eliminate these viruses, so we have at least virus-free stock for a good start in 2009.
We are working on a oca project to try and get rid of the daylenth issue. The first part was getting good true seed. Ben grew out some seeds and distributed them, the seed-setting needs very specific circumstances and flower stamens from different varieties, as I already mentioned in a previous post. (If anyone's interested in more, I 'll send a rather big pdf about that).

That was the first stage, growing out seeds. The second stage is growing out the seeds. Of all the seeds distributed, only two germinated! (And there were lots of seeds!)One at realseeds in Wales and one at my place. This plant did particularly well, producing 16 tubers, some big ones included, and producing another tuber from a cutting, one cutting is still alive over here, and one cutting was given to Ben by Patrick W , who met Ben during summer.
Next stage is to grow out these tubers, evaluate them, try to cross them with each other, and get some new seed-setting, hoping every time we will lose a bit of the daylength-sensitivity.

Meanwhile, I'm negociating with some people from Cipotato, in order to get their earliest producing varieties, their easy-flowering and easy-seed-setting varieties, in order to cross these with the earliest in our gardens (unfortunately cipotato's Argentinian oca selection isn't yet available, they still have to be examined on possible virus-infections). This could eventually lead to a loss of the daylength-sensibility, but it might take years and years...But, who knows, we could be lucky sooner.

There were already attempts , back in the 1800's to make these Andean tubers daylength-insensitive (so they could be used when the late blight in potatoes caused so much damage), but none of these trials succeeded. Some further trials have been done on and off, nothing worked...
There's a guy in New Zealand who managed to grow out some seed as well, and selected from the grown plants ('the yam man', in NZ, ocas are called NZ yams), he got some nice varieties, but still they remained daylength-sensitive...
And the story continues....

[luisport]

I will grow 5 regular mashua tubers for first time. I read it takes out sexual desire... i have afraid to heat them...

[billw]

I've eaten a lot of mashua and haven't noticed any effects other than a strange aftertaste. I wouldn't worry about it. In the studies they did on rats, it took several weeks of eating a large amount of mashua each day to reduce testosterone and then only a few weeks without eating mashua for the rats to recover to normal levels. So, if you notice a problem, just stop eating it. My guess is that most people won't be willing to eat enough mashua to cause any problems.

[luisport]

Feb 14, 2015 17:29:46 GMT -5 billw said:

I've eaten a lot of mashua and haven't noticed any effects other than a strange aftertaste. I wouldn't worry about it. In the studies they did on rats, it took several weeks of eating a large amount of mashua each day to reduce testosterone and then only a few weeks without eating mashua for the rats to recover to normal levels. So, if you notice a problem, just stop eating it. My guess is that most people won't be willing to eat enough mashua to cause any problems.

Thank you very much for your reply! 

[luisport]

www.peruecologico.com.pe/tub_mashua.htm