I noticed some subtle but consistent leaf malformation in some yacon that I am propagating this year. (This is not a named or publicly available variety – I use it for breeding.) I wasn’t sure if this was an intrinsic trait or externally caused, but I don’t remember seeing this before, so I decided to […]
If you have been following the blog, you know that we were lucky enough to get more than 130 yacon seedlings this year, from seed collected from four varieties last year. Very few people have grown yacon from seed, so we didn’t really know what to expect and we still won’t be able to get […]
Last year, we grew two new yacon varieties from seed and also collected more than 1000 yacon seeds. This year, after starting seeds in November, we have 132 yacon seedlings. Because yacon is polyploid and an obligate outcrosser, each one of those seedlings will be a new variety. That is, each variety must be pollinated […]
I’ve announced a lot of achievements that I was proud of in this blog, but this might be my favorite. These are the new varieties that we have produced in the past couple of years, all of which have been released under the terms of the Open Source Seed Initiative pledge. That picture represents thousands […]
One of the problems that we have in maintaining and expanding our little yacon collection is that it can be very difficult to distinguish different yacon varieties. Plants look very similar in the field and the rhizomes and storage roots also don’t vary all that much from variety to variety. A few conveniently have red/purple […]
This has been a tough year for Andean crops on the Washington coast. The weather has been significantly drier and warmer than any time in the ten years that we’ve lived here. In most years, we look for temperatures to reach into the 70s (Fahrenheit) about twice. This year, we’ve had almost thirty days with […]
Nature is a good teacher. One of the most valuable lessons that it teaches is the degree to which we take our powers of observation for granted. In reality, observation is not a passive activity. When we observe passively, the brain takes shortcuts. That is the only explanation I have for the fact that I […]
This post marks the relocation of Wetting the Beds from Google Blogger to the Cultivariable web site. You will find all future posts here and hopefully I have migrated all of the old posts over here more or less seamlessly. Existing links to posts should still work, but will bring you here instead. The reasons […]
We have been very lucky to find an artist who can translate my crude scribbling into a beautiful finished product. Here is a handy introduction to the major Andean root crops: Mashua, Oca, Potato, Ulluco, and Yacon. There is also a two page flier with the same information attached below. Click here for […]
This post is dedicated to all of the yacon spammers trying to put comments on our blog and Youtube videos peddling their pills and potions and stealing our images. Yacon can help you to lose weight and make you happier! I am certain of this. Here is the secret: 1. Get yourself a yacon plant, […]