Black Turnip

[stevil]

Does anyone know a source of black turnip seed (preferably round rooted form)?
A friend who lives in Oslo but grew up in Slovenia asked me if I knew a source. She also told me that she has seen black turnips for sale in Turkish shops in Oslo (imported from Turkey). Would like to try myself too...

[hortusbrambonii]

I have seeds of black radishes, but black turnips are unknown to me...

[billw]

As far as I've been able to tell, there are turnips that are called black, but are actually brown and radishes that are actually black, but called turnips. I've never seen a black turnip that was actually black. I would like to though, if such a thing exists.

I grew Pardailhan turnip for a couple of years, which is reputed to be black, but was really more brown and green.

[ferdzy]

What would happen if you bought some black turnips in the Turkish shops and planted them...?

[hortusbrambonii]

The things that could be called 'black turnips' that are sold in Turkish shops over here (I've seen some of those this week, I have no idea where they come from) are always radishes, not actual turnips.
We don't call them radish (radijs) or turnip (raap) but we use a different word for them in dutch: We call them 'rammenas'. That word means something like 'large radish' I suppose, since not only large black radishes but also daikon-like giant white radishes are called rammenas.

Black rammenas should be a traditional vegetable in this part of Europe. It's in the department of forgotten vegetables, I think most people over here don't know what to do with it. But the Turkish immigrant do seem like them a lot since they regularly sell them, I have no idea how they eat them though...

Those radishes are black with a very rough and thick skin, but inside they're white like most radishes, and they do taste like other radishes and daikons. (Some are even quite strong!) There are 2 types of black rammenas: long ones (size of a smaller daikon) and round ones.
The round ones mostly have the size of a turnip and could easily be mistaken for one.

That Pardailhan turnip looks interesting too though...

[richardw]

Not hard to understand why that could be thought of as a turnip when you consider just how big some of the black radishes can get,i've got a block of Black Spanish that are larger than ive ever seen they before,hopefully been that large will mean i harvest a lot of seed from them.