Andean Root Vegetables 2018

[billw]

Only seven weeks late starting the thread this year. Probably better than average!

I guess I am more of a lumper than a splitter and we've been doing a combined threads for Andean root crops for a few years now. It seems to work, but you are of course under no obligation to stick to this thread. Typically, we discuss Achira, Ajipa, Arracacha, Maca, Mashua, Mauka, Oca, Ulluco, and Yacon. Potato is obviously also an Andean root crop, but usually there are other threads running that are dedicated to potatoes.

Last year's thread

I thought that I would start off with some useful links this time for anyone who is contemplating trying these for the first time. Many of the links are mine, which is probably uncouth, but there just aren't very many sources of information on these crops.

Lost Crops of the Incas

The classic source for these and other Andean crops. It is dated and will lead you astray in numerous ways, but it is also probably the best introduction overall.

Radix Root Crops Blog

Radix has covered many of the Andean root crops in detail and few of us who grow them would have had much success without those pioneering posts. If you want to go back to the beginning of the Andean root crop renaissance, work your way through the blog.

My guides to each of the nine species:
Achira
Ajipa
Arracacha
Maca
Mashua
Mauka
Oca
Ulluco
Yacon

If you know of other good sources of information about these crops, please share them!

[billw]

Last year was a big disappointment for me, as we had a rough year and a lot of flooding early on that damaged the crop. That was quite a setback and I had little to report. I'm anticipating a better growing season this year. The most exciting projects:

* I will be growing out 98 of my own seed-grown ulluco varieties. I have now reached the point where I can start separating them out by phenotype and hopefully produce different lines of seed with more predictable shape and color traits. My goal is to collect 4000 seeds this year, which would produce about another 160 seedlings over four years of germination. I still have seeds from 2014 germinating, with a total germination of about 4% over that period.

* I am looking to grow about 500 yacon seedlings this year from two groups of seed - those collected from the earliest flowering varieties and those collected from varieties with the reddest storage roots.

* I will be doing final evaluations on about 40 new mashua varieties produced over the past four years. I have some really nice looking ones with pink and dark purple skin. These will be more closely evaluated for seed set and flavor this year.

* I am starting about 1000 oca seeds this year. Not the biggest batch that I've grown, but still big enough to produce about 20 candidates and probably four or five keepers over the long haul.

I'm still dabbling with the other crops, not making a lot of progress. I have some achira crosses to grow out this year. Usually they aren't very different from the parents, but I'll keep looking for something that stands out. I have propagated up arracacha to useful quantities, but have had no luck getting seed from it yet. I have a few crosses between red and white mauka to try. When it comes to the lesser known species, I still have a lot to learn.

What are you growing this year?

[richardw]

My Yacon growing this summer was mainly about building up stock after coming so close to losing the lot, two summers ago all but one plant disappeared. I tried starting off a plant early in my tunnelhouse to see if it could flower, but nothing as yet, this one plant is a lot taller than the others. billw at what stage of the growing season do you get flowers?

[billw]

The heirloom yacon varieties flower here anywhere between about 180 to 250 days after planting, depending on variety. Bekya, Morado, and New Zealand are the earliest. Some of my seed grown varieties start flowering in as little as 150 days. It takes them about another month to get a good number of flowers going, so you need a minimum of 7 months in the ground to get much flowering.

[richardw]

Right, worked out mine has been growing 8 months now, some of that time in a large pot. Would a hot summer reduce the likelihood of flowering

[orflo]

Feb 22, 2018 16:55:35 GMT -5 richardw said:

My Yacon growing this summer was mainly about building up stock after coming so close to losing the lot, two summers ago all but one plant disappeared. I tried starting off a plant early in my tunnelhouse to see if it could flower, but nothing as yet, this one plant is a lot taller than the others. billw at what stage of the growing season do you get flowers?

Richard,
Istill have that variety that you sent me years ago, and it is a hard one to get into a flowering stage, it's one of the last ones to flower over here. But it should work better for you, you should have a bit of a longer growwing season, I start them quite early to have some early flowering ones, from the end of February/beginning of March and many of them will flower in September, some of the new varieties grown from seeds do indeed flower a bit earlier as Bill mentioned, but the difference between the flowering periods of the two groups isn't so big over here, 10-15 days for many varieties (and that doesn't include the one that came from you, that one has at least a 40 days delay compared to the earlies flowering ones). Last year we had a very early quite severe frost (-4°C) and I could only collect 3 seeds all in all before that night. It's a pity, otherwise I could have sent some seeds over to you. Oh well, we'll try again this year...

[orflo]

Feb 22, 2018 5:04:11 GMT -5 billw said:

Last year was a big disappointment for me, as we had a rough year and a lot of flooding early on that damaged the crop. That was quite a setback and I had little to report. I'm anticipating a better growing season this year. The most exciting projects:

* I will be growing out 98 of my own seed-grown ulluco varieties. I have now reached the point where I can start separating them out by phenotype and hopefully produce different lines of seed with more predictable shape and color traits. My goal is to collect 4000 seeds this year, which would produce about another 160 seedlings over four years of germination. I still have seeds from 2014 germinating, with a total germination of about 4% over that period.

* I am looking to grow about 500 yacon seedlings this year from two groups of seed - those collected from the earliest flowering varieties and those collected from varieties with the reddest storage roots.

* I will be doing final evaluations on about 40 new mashua varieties produced over the past four years. I have some really nice looking ones with pink and dark purple skin. These will be more closely evaluated for seed set and flavor this year.

* I am starting about 1000 oca seeds this year. Not the biggest batch that I've grown, but still big enough to produce about 20 candidates and probably four or five keepers over the long haul.

I'm still dabbling with the other crops, not making a lot of progress. I have some achira crosses to grow out this year. Usually they aren't very different from the parents, but I'll keep looking for something that stands out. I have propagated up arracacha to useful quantities, but have had no luck getting seed from it yet. I have a few crosses between red and white mauka to try. When it comes to the lesser known species, I still have a lot to learn.

What are you growing this year?

Bill,
sorry to hear about your bad season, it wasn't the best here as well, with a very dry spell included and not too warm. But still things grew reasonably fine, I'll be sowing about 100 oca seeds (I don't have a very big field), the only three yacon seeds that were harvested, and I will grow back everything that was already here, some 85 oca varieties, 28 yacon varieties, and so on. I lost nearly all the mashua, only one made it through the dry spell last year, so I'll have a look-out for some other varieties.
The olluco that you sent me two years ago was quite fine, and some seeds started to develop but they strangely disappeared before they could reach any fully-grown stage, did they drop off (I couldn't find any of them), or were they eaten by mice or whatever? I don't have a clue...But it looks that there could be some progress in that as well, thanks to you!

[billw]

Orflo, I am really excited to hear that you saw seeds on my ullucos, even if you didn't collect any. That is the first report that I have heard of anyone else seeing seed set. That is one step closer to being able to breed ulluco in climates that are at least a little different than mine. I collect them when they are about a week from maturity by removing the entire inflorescence. Once the seeds are mature, they fall off really easily.

I got four seeds from your yacon/S. riparius hybrid last year and I hope that they will germinate. I hand pollinated them from yacon, but where I grew them, I can't be sure what else might have pollinated them. It also could have been S. connatus, S, maculatus, or S. uvedalius.

[richardw]

Feb 23, 2018 12:24:54 GMT -5 orflo said:

Feb 22, 2018 16:55:35 GMT -5 richardw said:

My Yacon growing this summer was mainly about building up stock after coming so close to losing the lot, two summers ago all but one plant disappeared. I tried starting off a plant early in my tunnelhouse to see if it could flower, but nothing as yet, this one plant is a lot taller than the others. billw at what stage of the growing season do you get flowers?

Richard,
Istill have that variety that you sent me years ago, and it is a hard one to get into a flowering stage, it's one of the last ones to flower over here. But it should work better for you, you should have a bit of a longer growwing season, I start them quite early to have some early flowering ones, from the end of February/beginning of March and many of them will flower in September, some of the new varieties grown from seeds do indeed flower a bit earlier as Bill mentioned, but the difference between the flowering periods of the two groups isn't so big over here, 10-15 days for many varieties (and that doesn't include the one that came from you, that one has at least a 40 days delay compared to the earlies flowering ones). Last year we had a very early quite severe frost (-4°C) and I could only collect 3 seeds all in all before that night. It's a pity, otherwise I could have sent some seeds over to you. Oh well, we'll try again this year...

Hi Frank , sounds like i may need to start one off even earlier, either that i try and find other varieties here in NZ, ive sent a contact to -   yacon.wordpress.com/growing-yacon/ i see they have flowers on there website but thats if the photos are even from there own plants?. For seed imports, ive looked up the MPI Plants Biosecurity Index but dont understand whats shown up in the search, need to give them a ring.

[billw]

Feb 23, 2018 1:06:36 GMT -5 richardw said:

Right, worked out mine has been growing 8 months now, some of that time in a large pot. Would a hot summer reduce the likelihood of flowering

It might, but people report flowering all over the US, where the summers are usually pretty hot. As always, my expertise ends at the border of my garden. You will need more than one variety to get seeds.

[billw]

Yesterday I harvested pots of ulluco seedlings that germinated in the fall. A disproportionate amount of seeds germinate in fall and I haven't been able to recreate whatever conditions make that happen, so I just work with it. By harvesting even immature tubers about now and storing them in plastic bags at room temperature, I can get them to break dormancy by June, which allows a sufficient growing season (harvest in December).



I'm pretty happy with the results.  This is the first year that second and third generation seeds have had much germination.  7 of the 16 here are second or third generation.  There is 1 orange, 3 white, 3 red, and 9 yellow.  Colors will be darker and many will be spotted at full maturity.

The ratio of whites to colored varieties (about 19%) is still supportive of my guess that ulluco color inheritance is similar to beet.

[richardw]

So what are your thoughts on the taste of them Bill.

[billw]

Mar 9, 2018 2:42:39 GMT -5 richardw said:

So what are your thoughts on the taste of them Bill.

These are new and small, so I won't taste them until after I've grown them out this year. But, in general, I don't detect a lot of flavor differences between ulluco varieties. There are definitely texture differences though. Some are much more mucilaginous than others. Like probably most people with western palates, I don't favor slimy foods, so I will probably select against those eventually. At this point, the only trait that I am selecting for is seed set.

It is really interesting to reflect on how little we know about these Andean crops even though they have been domesticated for thousands of year. There are maybe 300 to 500 varieties of ulluco, but to the best of my knowledge, there is no written information in any language describing any agronomic or culinary traits of those varieties.

For all the time that I have put in working on ulluco, I still know next to nothing about it.

[billw]

Assuming that any of them germinate, I have a chance to make some progress with arracacha. Unfortunately, arracacha seed is reported to have very low germination, but I only need one. These are seeds of Peruvian origin, so they should hopefully be a little more climate compatible than the existing varieties that are available in the US. Hopefully I will be posting pictures of seedlings in a couple weeks.

[richardw]

Quite a large seed. Good luck with them.