Andean vegetables 2014

[steev]

I didn't want to draw interest to that, but size does matter.

[richardw]

Jun 6, 2014 19:29:23 GMT -5 cesarz said:

Downunder, it is harvest time; Andean Harvest

Very nice Cesar,ive only dug a couple of plants so far but early signs are not good,as in there size,must get them all dug and lay them out in the sunny spot.

[cesarz]

Speaking of size, here is the family of giants now cleaned up:


And here are the wierdos:

[richardw]

You've got some fasciated ones Cesar,quite common in Oca

[philagardener]

It is interesting that there is less color diversity in the fasciated tubers than the regular group.

[billw]

Some varieties seem to be much more prone to fasciation than others.

[billw]

I made my first oca cross of the season today: NZ Heirloom No. 2 x Orflo's 015. Both mid-styled varieties, so odds of success aren't that great, but the early flowering continues.

[kevin8715]

Want you guys who grown mauka to check if this one is mauka. Just want to make sure.

[rowan]

Ok, so now it is my turn to report on my seedling oca. Here are pictures of the seedling tubers I have just dug today. They were mostly planted in small 10cm pots which is why they didn't get many tubers. You will note that the two that were in bigger pots developed a lot more tubers. The tags are 12.5cm long for comparison.




My favourite one is seedling number one as the bicolours of the tubers are so vivid and the plant has an unusual upright habit.



The last picture shows a pot of very small plants that I don't want to disturb until I plant the tubers in spring. There is a bout a dozen tiny plants in that pot and most of them have a tiny tuber.

Seeding 4 started to develop a lot of stem tubers. What is everyones thinking on plants that develop stem tubers without stress. I know that most oca will develop them when stressed but this year I had hardly any on any of my plants.

I just harvested my beds of oca also. It was a pitiful harvest this year but I am guessing that I was so worried about the heat during the summer that I over watered them and rotted them. The late bed I dug today did much better with each plant providing between one and two kg of tubers, most of which were eating size.

[rowan]

Here is a pic of what I consider eating size. Anything under that is replanted or sold. And the second pic is a sport I found on my 'normal' pink types.
I also planted a bed of cream coloured tubers but as I killed off most of the plants it wasn't worth putting up a pic of the few I managed to harvest.

[billw]

Looking good, Rowan! Pretty good diversity there. The first one is similar to Hopin, which is very likely to be one of the parents, since it was the only mid-styled variety that flowered for the greater portion of the season.

I have a hypothesis that plants that form lots of stem tubers without obvious physical damage are suffering infections that block vascular tissue, since I have seen wilting preceding the stem tubers. I haven't done any real investigation though.

Did any of your plants flower?

[rowan]

Thanks Bill. No, none of them flowered. Flowering is very hit and miss here, some years I get none, this year my bedded plants flowered very early and not at all later. I expect these will flower next year as the plants will be bigger coming from tubers.

There was no noticable damage or wilting of that plant with the stem tubers so it will be interesting to see what it does next year.
I thought the first looked familiar, It does look much like the pictures of 'Hopin' that I have seen. Is that variety particularly upright and stiff with large leaves?

[rowan]

I harvested one bed of yacon today. This was a bed that I left in the open in our scorching summer so they didn't do much good. The ones I had under shadecloth grew twice the size and are still actually flowering since we haven't had the frosts this autumn/winter that we usually get. I have even managed to gather some seeds.

The entire harvest of tuberous crops was very pitiful this year but I should do better next season. I have two more beds to harvest including the bigger, shaded plants that should have much better tuber production.

Here is a 60 litre tub of growing sets to replant in a few months.



And 10kg of tubers that I will take to the market at the end of the month. Most of the tubers in this bed were very small and not worth eating so I left them on the growing sets as that tends to get them going better and bigger.




I have noticed that this year the tubers don't have nearly the splitting problem that I had last year.

[richardw]

Hey well done getting seed from your yacon,mine never even flowered this past summer in yet grew massive tubers

[billw]

Yacon seed is reported to be quite rare and viable yacon seed even moreso. If you manage to get a seedling, that will be big news!