Yacon crown in january
Patrick in the Netherlands asked how I store my yacon crowns.
The yacon crowns I have stored in peat in a jar in the bottom of an oldfashion cool larder next to the kitchen. Now looking to them I start to get worried. I have sprinkled them lightly with water on occasions to keep the peat slightly moist, but apparently it wasn’t good enough.
Now I have asked some experienced danish seedsavers also experimenting with yacon. One is in same troubles as I. But the other is much better at it. So what’s the art? Presumably they just had to be stored like dahlias, and my dahlias are doing well.
This is what she writes:
“I keep my (yacon) in wood dust above freezing point but cold – aprox. 3-4 Celcius. I do not sprinkle with water – they look OK. Some of the larger roots have started to dry out a little, but I believe they will survive. Our basement is humid. This is how dahlia is stored, and it should be same family.”
I don’t have a facility with a stable temperature around 4Celcius. The fridge might do, but it’s usually full. I need to find another solution. Then I think of what Rose Marie commented in my last post on yacon. Since winter until now has been very mild, I have now potted up the yacon crowns and put them out in the green house according to her advise. It’s a kind of russian roulette to my yacon crowns, I watch the weather forecast attentively every night. I have taken my precausions, trying to minimise the risk and slow it down when it comes. Pots are placed in green house directly on the ground to enable ground heat to travel up in the pots. Then I have covered with a double layer of bubblefoil (recycled). To increase the mass under the cover I’ve added a 2½litre flask of water, hopefully giving me more hours before frost are able to kill the yacon crowns.
Does someone else have experience storing yacon crowns?
In the toad's garden 
January 19, 2008 at 16:54
I don’t think my crown will make it. I think it’s dead already, but we shall see…
January 29, 2008 at 18:59
I had another thought about the yacón crowns. I’ll bet it’s very sensitive to ethylene gas. Onions and garlic give off ethylene gas. Do you also keep onions or garlic in your larder?
I kept my yacón crown for a short time in the same room with some onions and garlic, and I wonder if that was long enough make it go bad.
January 29, 2008 at 20:34
Indeed, I had the yacon crowns right next to my shallots in the larder. You suggestion about ethylene gas make sense, I think you are very right on that.
I just checked in the greenhouse. One Yacon crown is definitely alive, the two others I didn’t pull out of the pot to control. I’ve placed a cordless thermometer together with them, so I hopefully can save them from the greenhouse in time, when weather changes to colder.
February 13, 2008 at 20:23
As a comment on Indicator plants, Frank wrote:
“Frank Says:
February 13, 2008 at 5:59 pm e
Hi Skrub, I am interested in your yacon, I have got two varieties, but yours is far more red-coloured than mine, and at a first glance, as productive as my least productive. My most prolific gives me at least 10 kgs., in good years 20 kgs., that’s lots of good yacon. Could you tell me where you found this red one?”
Hi Frank.
I got my yacon from another danish seedsaver. (It’s the yacon listed in the Frøsamlerne 2008 seedlist) In turn he got it from a norwegian seedsaver.
How soes you overwinter you yacon crowns?
February 14, 2008 at 07:43
Hi Skrub, I’ve been experimenting a bit, and I did find out the best way is to dig them up in one piece (I already did that for years) and to place them in a large tub or box or… and put some sand or compost or… around the tubers. Everything is put aside in a frostfree dark place. Last year I had tubers up to July. I know two Norwegian seedsavers, I’ll ask them if it’s their yacon…
Thanks,
Frank
February 17, 2008 at 10:57
Hi Frank.
It is very usefull information. Next year I will follow your advise, thanks.
Søren.
March 6, 2008 at 11:06
I just got a few tubers from a Belgian seedsaver (named Frank, so maybe the same person who left the comment above), and he photocopied a page from a book for me that said pretty much the same thing:
After the first frost, dig up the entire plant and cut off the top to about 10cm. Place the entire root structure into a wooden or plastic box with some drain holes in it.
Because the tubers become sweeter after storage, let this sit in a cool place like a root cellar for 3-4 weeks. If any of the tubers have accidentally broken off, they can be placed in the sun or in a greenhouse which will speed up the sweetening process.
The sweetening process seems to go better if the plant is uncovered, but afterwards cover the plant with sand, peat or compost for storage until the following spring.
At the end of February, the stem tubers can be cut and planted out.
May 27, 2008 at 20:05
Sad news – no surviving yacon.
Good thing – others had more luck, and I have learned more about storing yacon.
Next year I will ask for a new crown to grow.
May 28, 2008 at 17:13
Too bad about the yacon.
I think it’s important not to separate the growing tips from the crown until after February.
If I still have any alive then, I’ll be happy to send some.
May 30, 2008 at 08:42
It’s strange,at some places yacon doesn’t seem to work, I have no problems with them, do you have a very wet soil or lots of rain, or even a high ground water level?
Patrick, the information here and on your blog did come from the same person,and I photocopied a paper I wrote myself, so the information I gave here should be about the same,
May 23, 2009 at 18:24
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