Breeding the Dark Oca

[cesarz]

I have been fascinated by the "Inky Oca" in Ian Pearson's blog Inky-oca-lands-in-london and decided to hunt for a suitable candidate to recreate the dark oca.
From his blog, this is what it looks like: Inky Oca. jpg


I have selected several varieties and will post the pictures later.

[billw]

Sounds like a fun project. Will you be attempting to do this by selecting repeatedly from clones or by breeding from true seed?

I wonder if the Inky oca might have been a sour oca. I think there are very few (no?) sour ocas outside the Andes, so we may be lacking a big chunk of oca genetic diversity.

[cesarz]

Hi billw,

I have been scouring the farmers market here and found some really dark oca and would use these and try to breed and select from true seeds. I tried to get it from CIP but they do not have true seeds, only a few tubers and tissue cultured stock are available, but no "Inky Oca".

[cesarz]

Here they are.
A selection of dark-ish oca from one source:


A set of tubers for breeding:

[cesarz]

Offspring of the dark ones above have resulted in this:



but still not as dark as Inky Oca

[raymondo]

Looks good nevertheless. What is the flesh colour? Or are all oca the same inside?