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Post by ianpearson on Feb 25, 2010 14:52:53 GMT -5
My blog about growing oca in UK conditions. I'm particularly interested in bi-cropping and growing within polycultures, and will be reporting on a couple of trials each growing season. Somewhat specialised - if you don't like oca, don't look at my blog! :) oca-testbed.blogspot.com/
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Post by toad on Mar 7, 2010 14:39:18 GMT -5
Don't know if I like oca, never tasted - but like you blog.
I'll probably end up growing oca one day :-)
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Post by raymondo on Mar 18, 2010 4:07:56 GMT -5
I like your blog too. I've tried growing oca several times but with little success. Autumns are just too short here. Oh well, at least I can read about other people's successes.
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Post by robertb on Mar 18, 2010 4:46:10 GMT -5
Autumns are long for me, but I still didn't get much of a crop! Could you lengthen it by using fleece or cloching the plants?
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Post by ianpearson on Mar 18, 2010 13:56:13 GMT -5
Thanks guys. Toad, your location should give good conditions for oca. An urban-heat-island maritime microclimate aught to give the plants time to tuberise.
Raymondo, as Robertb suggests, you just need a method of keeping the frost off the plants. Or then again, why fight nature? Maybe it's just simpler to grow what grows easily in your climate.
Hi Robertb, do you grow it as a mono-crop? We tend to have high expectations for yield from mono-crops, but oca does well as a bi-crop or in a polyculture, where it only has to contribute to the total yield. I like to see it as a useful addition to an already satisfactory output. But there's still lots to learn. Based on your post about the difference in success between red and white oca, I've acquired white and some other varieties of oca with a view to doing variety trials. Variety could be a big factor in why some people report poor results. It will have to be next year though.
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Post by robertb on Mar 18, 2010 14:02:23 GMT -5
I grew it as a monocrop last year. This year, I'm going to be pushed to squeeze in all the pea varities I've acquired along with everything else, and I may well grow sweet corn through it.
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Post by ianpearson on Mar 18, 2010 14:13:37 GMT -5
Grow oca with tall peas!!
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Post by orflo on Mar 18, 2010 14:17:38 GMT -5
There's a small trick in order to have an early crop of ocas, I placed some info on it here: alanbishop.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=others&action=display&thread=3138&page=2You're off course right about the monocrops, oca is/was traditionally grown in Andean fields, together with mashua, potatoes, and ullucus, sometimes ahipa as well. But there seems to be a small problem with oca, I noticed it does have an impact on weed growth, not only by smothering. And a friend of mine, who has a big field of oca as well, told me he had the impression that the soil seems to be less fertile the year aftter oca had grown on that spot. Is it only an impression, or is there more to it, I don't know...? I never read a report mentioning the lesser soil fertility, but there are some reports on lesser weed growth, mainly due to smothering (just like mashua off course)...
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Post by robertb on Mar 18, 2010 17:25:07 GMT -5
I was hesitating about growing peas through oca as I don't know how shade would affect it. But I have a lot of varieties where I have only a dozen seeds or less, and those would be a possibility. I'll see how it works out.
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Post by ianpearson on Mar 19, 2010 3:03:50 GMT -5
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Post by atash on Mar 28, 2010 0:38:02 GMT -5
I think Oca is very easy to grow in my climate and even in my horrible soil (but I think it helps that it's somewhat sandy and acidic), but it does not flower. I dunno if daylight length is the issue, or if it's just gone sterile. I want a Mashua that will bloom too. The ones grown here will bloom--sort of--in November--but frost kinda cuts the blooming period short. Unfortunately day-neutral varieties are not available here.
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Post by ianpearson on Mar 28, 2010 14:18:23 GMT -5
Hi Atash. Some varieties seem more willing to flower more than others. The main variety I grow had two flowering plant out of the 20 that I grew last year, so maybe you were just unlucky. The flowers are less spectacular than the tubers, so you are not missing too much.
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Post by atash on Mar 28, 2010 14:35:25 GMT -5
Thanks for the tip. This year I ostensibly have more varieties than I did last year, though they all look similar.
>>The flowers are less spectacular than the tubers, so you are not missing too much.
I have to admit that as Oxalis go the whole plant isn't much to look at. But it would be nice to get flowers and better yet, seed. Even if they bloom, though, they might be self-incompatible as is common with Oxalis.
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Post by robertb on Mar 28, 2010 16:26:33 GMT -5
Last year mine flowered, but set no seed. I'm not sure why.
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Post by atash on Mar 28, 2010 18:16:39 GMT -5
Last year mine flowered, but set no seed. I'm not sure why. Not unusual for Oxalis to be self-incompatible. They have 3 different types of flowers, and you need 2 types that are compatible to get seed. It's a little like Primroses, that are either "pin-centered" or "thrumb centered". A few Oxalis seem to be self-fertile, like the little annual weedy one with red leaves and yellow flowers. The native Oxalis here might be too as I have often gotten seed from it, but for that matter I might have several different types.
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