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Post by rowan on Mar 30, 2015 5:02:02 GMT -5
I had to dig up my yautia plants (xanthosoma sagittifolium) to make way for a new greenhouse. Although most of them had not been in the ground long enough yet to produce tubers there were two older ones with small tubers so I took them inside to have a taste.  First up I put my tongue on a cut tuber to check for calcium oxalate and there was no stinging so I proceeded to roast it and then served it up. That was a mistake - after eating a little bit my mouth (and unfortunately my mother was also affected) was beset with needle stinging which I found strange as calcium crystals are supposed to be neutralised by heat. I thought I might have to destroy all my plants if they could not be cooked but I decided to give them another go. Last night I chopped up some more and ate a little raw tuber. It was bland and just a little nutty, quite pleasant, but no stinging. I then boiled a piece of tuber till it was tender before eating it. The nuttiness was intensified and a bit of carrot taste added but there was no needles this time. I have no idea why the tuber reacted to roasting that way and would appreciate anyone elses experiences with yautia to see if this is a normal thing to happen. |
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Post by templeton on Mar 30, 2015 17:11:35 GMT -5
Rowan,
from here <http://www.fao.org/docrep/t0646e/t0646e0o.htm> "...Domestication may have occurred in various places and with different materials, and was based on processes such as roasting and cooking the tubers, thereby eliminating the irritant substances, calcium oxalate crystals and saponins...."
So it looks like roasting should be OK. Did you peel them?
Rowan was kind enough to send me some yacon tubers last year, which I grew out in a pot. Had a bit of a taste of one small tuber last week - strange, but not unpleasant...
T
T
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Post by rowan on Mar 30, 2015 19:54:49 GMT -5
It was boiling that made the yautia good to eat, the roasted tuber was inedible. Yes, they were peeled. it was just really strange that the tuber could be eaten raw with no bad effects and just roasting them was awful  Did you remember to store the yacon tuber for a week or two before eating it to allow it to sweeten? |
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Post by templeton on Mar 30, 2015 20:49:16 GMT -5
Oops, didn't store it...will next time. How do you over-winter them?
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Post by rowan on Mar 30, 2015 22:03:00 GMT -5
It can be difficult to store them for more than a couple of months without rotting (the eating tubers), I just keep them in barely damp, or even dry, potting mix in my garage till they are all sold.
The growing sets I just replant where I want them next year and grow a quick crop over them (like lettuce or mizuna) till they come up in spring. I hate storing stuff, even the garlic and potatoes get the same treatment. I prefer to store as much as I can in the ground.
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Post by steev on Mar 31, 2015 1:48:40 GMT -5
Well, isn't that what Nature does?
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Post by Marches on Apr 22, 2015 1:10:15 GMT -5
So, what are your plans for 2015? I'll be keeping busy. Ulluco: I'm working over the winter to turn the 2014 volunteer ulluco into at least 16 plants. I've sown about 800 ulluco seeds on a variety of different media and I'm hoping to see some results. I'm quadrupling our ulluco planting with a goal of producing 5000 seeds this year. Oca: I'm growing out fewer seedlings than last year, a bit less than 500. I'm testing 66 2013 and 2014 varieties. You can see those here: artcwiki.cultivariable.com/index.php/Trial_Ocas_2015Mashua: I'm working on starting about 100 mashua seeds right now. No idea what the germination rate will be like, but I hope that it's high. I've just purchased the materials to build a greenhouse specifically for mashua and yacon seed production. 2014 was a huge bummer, as I spent at least 100 hours doing hand-crosses on mashua and lost almost all of them to an early freeze. That won't happen again. Mauka: Along with the new greenhouse, I'm building a small blackout/greenhouse for mauka in the hope of getting some good seed production going. We have a couple plants in the greenhouse that look like they're getting ready to flower, but the plants are pretty small because I cut them back severely before transplanting them to the greenhouse in the fall. Arracacha: I had about 50/50 success taking arracacha offsets in the fall and now have five plants growing in the greenhouse that all look pretty happy. The only goal for these plants is to find a way to force them to produce seed. I don't think that this variety will ever produce a reasonable yield here outdoors, but seed could unlock something interesting. Yacon: We're doubling the size of the yacon plot, but I don't expect any seed outdoors; the flowers just come a bit too late. The aforementioned greenhouse project should allow us to extend the yacon season year-round, which I hope will increase the odds of getting some seed. I have another species of Smallanthus (S. maculatus) growing in the hope of hybridizing, but I have no idea if they are genetically compatible. Maca: The more that I grow maca, the more confused I am by the results. A few plants produce good roots in a regular season, but most don't. Is there really that much variation out of my original seed or is there something else going on? Anyway, the nice thing about maca is that it is very small. We'll grow about 1000 plants again and keep selecting for good root size. Ahipa: I should probably just put this on the list of Andean plants that won't grow here, but I have a few dozen seeds remaining from 2010 and I'm going to give it another try starting the plants in pots and not transplanting them out until June. I think the main problem with ahipa here is lack of heat. It perks up quite a bit in the greenhouse. Achira: Although every achira rhizome that I've tried has had a really unappealing texture, people keep telling me that it tastes good, so I'll grow a few plants, some from last year's rhizomes and a few more from seed. I won't put much effort into this plant unless I get something tasty. I'm also growing small amounts of a few other Andean plants like achocha, huacatay, and chincho, mostly just for eating rather than any ambitions toward breeding at this point. I suspect maca like cool conditions and short days. I'd personally try sowing some seed in autumn / fall and see if they develop over winter. Would need protecting perhaps until roots devlop a bit though. |
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Post by hortusbrambonii on Apr 22, 2015 11:39:17 GMT -5
My few maca plants (in a pot) dried out with the first serious sun over here  It doesn't like full sun and drought in a small pot apparently... I do have new seedlings ready (winter-sown) though. |
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Post by billw on May 1, 2015 20:14:42 GMT -5
I got my sixth ulluco seedling of the year and my first yacon seedling ever today. I'm very excited about the yacon. The seeds didn't sink in a soak test, so I had very little confidence in them. There are some researchers in Peru who have had good success growing them out, but outside of the Andes, I've only heard of three seedlings.
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Post by richardw on May 2, 2015 20:09:07 GMT -5
Yacon- did well this summer with it been a warm summer,never ever flowers for me though,i do need to move it to an area of deeper soil as where it is is rather stoney so there for needs a lot of water.
Oca- is a collection of this past winter grown seedlings and the previous seasons,starting to get light frosts now so the bed gets covered with woolen blankets,need to keep them alive for another month before digging up the crop to reveal what colours are there.
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Post by jeremy on May 11, 2015 20:58:04 GMT -5
Has anyone had pest problems with Yacon? Several of my small, potted Yacon plants have been severed near the soil line in the past week. Looking around, I have found a Zinnia seedling that has also been severed, and in retrospect I think a small Oca plant also was a week or two back. I had something similar happen to all (!) my Sunflowers last year, so this could be a repeat of the same spring pest - especially given the relation between Sunflowers and Yacon (although my Sunchokes haven't been bothered either year.) These have been in small pots with other plants in flats, near but not on the ground outside. Here is a severed plant...  Here is a severed top...  The Zinnia...  Cutworms? Do Wooly Bear caterpillars do this? Clever management strategies? |
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Post by steev on May 11, 2015 21:43:12 GMT -5
Foil collars?
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Post by khoomeizhi on May 12, 2015 4:04:59 GMT -5
Has anyone had pest problems with Yacon? turkeys have been scratching up just-planted yacon here recently. |
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Post by rowan on May 25, 2015 21:35:52 GMT -5
Well it is going into winter here and my oca are starting to die down. I am amazed with my new season oca seedlings. Last year I germinated some seedlings and the end result was some plants which stayed small and produced microtubers which I planted into beds this season. This year I tried something different, I pricked up the seedlings into 11cm pots and buried the pots in the beds thinking they would grow a bit like last year and produce micro tubers to plant out next year. I was surprised that this years seedlings all grew into full sized plants which over grew the small pots. As you can see from the pictures below they didn't have enough room in the pots so started putting out stolons with tubers outside the pots. It has got me thinking that I am not giving them enough fertiliser in the normal beds as these were planted in these pots with potting mix and slow release fertiliser. I am so happy with this years results and will be experimenting with more fertile beds next year as well as bigger pots to see which does best. Note- these were Bills 'Group 2, preservation and experimental varieties' seed mix from his Cultivariable website. 1, This is the biggest and most vigorous of this years seedlings - sorry the photo doesn't show the true size of this plant as I have the foliage in the pic angled away from the camera (though it does show the extra weight I have gained over the past couple of years:( You can see how it is throwing out tubers everywhere. They are not huge tubers because it has not died down enough yet and they are still growing.  2, This one has really long stolons which I don't think is a good thing and may be culled.  3, And here is another, basically they are all like this but there is no need to show a pic of every plant, lol. It will be interesting to see how full the pots are with tubers when I eventually unpot them as most of them are heaving up out of their pots.  |
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Post by steev on May 26, 2015 1:19:56 GMT -5
I got my own puny oca tubers potted up awhile ago; I think squirrels and jays had worked them badly, but you reinforce my guess that they'd like more ready fertilizer than I'd provided.
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It doesn't like full sun and drought in a small pot apparently...
