Skirret harvest 2015

The other weekend I dug up my dormant skirret plants to harvest some delicious roots as well as divide the crowns.  Being Winter in Australia means that the skirret has died down and the roots are conveniently stored in the soil.  I have had a lot of people email me questions about skirret  (my email details are on my for sale page)so thought I should write another post about the harvest.

Dormant skirret plant

I wrote an earlier post on growing skirret from seed.  Skirret is a terrific perennial vegetable that desperately deserves someone to put in some dedicated breeding effort and bring it back into popularity.

Over the year the plants grew from tiny seeds into flowering size small plants, each year they will grow larger and stronger.  Unlike many perennial vegetables, skirret grew from seed, flowered and set more viable seed in a year, as well as that each plant produced a few offsets which can be divided and replanted.

Skirret plants ready for harvest

The Skirret Harvest
To harvest I waited until they had finished flowering, then collected the seeds and store them safely, then I cut off the flower stalk and waited for the plants to die down.  The skirret eventually died down leaving nothing but some dead leaves to show where they had been, I then was busy and didnt do anything for a few weeks.  We eventually had some frosts, but I was still busy so did nothing with the skirret plants.  I am told like many winter vegetables that frost makes skirret sweeter and richer in taste, I have never eaten non-frosted skirret so can not comment on this.  Then when I had time I dug up the plants, removed the larger roots, divided the offsets, and replanted everything.

Upon digging the skirret plants I got to see how they had grown, they looked a lot like asparagus crowns.  Each plant grew a small handful of edible roots, the roots were only about 15cm long as this year were as thin as a pencil.  Being first year plants that is not too bad, older plants should grow longer and slightly thicker roots.  The plants were over crowded into a pot which was too small for one plant to grow well, which also would have lowered the yield.  I allowed the plants to flower and set seed, all of this takes a lot of energy and reduces the crop significantly.

Skirret plants in a pot starting to flower

Skirret Flowers attract beneficial insects

What Does Skirret Taste Like
We did not get a large crop this year so I dug the roots, scrubbed the dirt off them, sliced them and ate them raw.  My kids loved skirret even more than I do, they could not get enough.

I forgot how much I like skirret, it tastes very sweet.  It is the sweetest thing that I grow, which is saying a lot considering I grow so many different fruit trees, herbs (including stevia the so called sweet herb") and vegetables (including yacon).  The skin tastes a lot like carrot, if scrubbed off you lose a lot of the carrot taste and are left with the sweetness.  It has another taste to it which I really like, I dont know how to describe it.  It is very mild and subtle, but it adds something nice to the sweetness.

Skirret crowns

How to store skirret
Skirret, like many winter root crops, stores best in the soil to be dug when it is needed.  It can also be stored well in the fridge in a plastic bag.  I have no idea if it can be frozen but I assume it can, if frozen I guess it would be no good for eating raw but should be good for cooking.  I have never tried freezing it myself, so you may need to use caution here.

I left some on the kitchen bench for a few days, it does not store well like this at all.  They lost their crispness very fast and became pretty inedible and droopy.  I did not want to lose any skirret as it is so delicious so I put those limp roots in a cup of water to see if they would rehydrate and become edible once again.  It appears that they do, they are not as good as the ones that were stored properly, but they are still nice to eat again.

Seed grown skirret, some are better than others

How To Grow Skirret
Skirret can be started from seeds, first year plants are smaller and often have a woody core.  Skirret grown from seed often exhibits a lot of genetic variability, this can be a great thing resulting in improved plants, or it can result in substandard plants.  They should all taste similar, but the yield will be different.  Seeds are tiny and do not have excellent germination, my fresh seeds are only showing about 70% germination and the tiny seedlings are inviting to slugs and snails.  Seeds are reasonably cheap and I am told that skirret seeds remain viable for about 10 years.  When buying a packet of 20 seeds it is not difficult to end up with well over a dozen plants which is more than most people will have room for.

Tiny skirret seedlings ready to be transplanted

The seeds are tiny, in spring I sprinkle the seeds on top of soil in a punnet and water them.  I wait until the seedlings have grown a bit before I plant them in their final spot as I find I can protect a punnet a bit easier.

Skirret offset ready to be planted

Most people who have the option grow skirret from offsets.  These offsets are essentially tiny cuttings that the plant makes itself, each one is genetically identical to the parent.  These tiny offsets sit dormant over winter, then when the time is right they start to grow and get a head start on seed grown plants.  They will grow a larger crop with less woody cores than first year seed grown plants.  Offsets are more expensive, and you get one plant per offset the first year.  Each year after that your skirret will divide and flower.

I plant the offsets so that the growing tip is just beneath the soil surface, if you get heavy frost you way want to plant them a bit deeper or mulch the tiny offset over winter.  If you live somewhere without frost you can plant the offset so that the tip of the leaves are just poking out of the soil.  You will need to protect them from slugs and snails while they are little.  The offsets are pretty small, they usually will have no roots at this stage, this is normal and they will grow well from this when the weather is right.

Skirret offsets, they are small but they all will grow

Where to buy skirret in Australia
I sell packets of skirret seeds, they are a great way to grow a decent number of skirret plants.  I also sell offsets or small plants from my better plants on my for sale page, they are a great way to grow known performing plants that should grow larger than from seed reasonably fast.  I only sell offsets from the better plants.

I will sell offsets over winter, but they will be dormant and not do much until spring, if I have any left I plan to sell small plants over the warmer months.  Above is a picture of some skirret offsets next to a measuring tape for scale so that you can tell exactly what you will get if you buy them.

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Immali corn

I started messing around with corn breeding a few years ago. Corn genetics is messy, the more I learn the more I find that I dont know.  Genetics was so much easier when we knew nothing!

Many varieties of corn suffer from varying amounts of inbreeding depression, to save seed it is best to grow at least 200 plants and save seed from the best 50 to 100.  Some varieties of landrace corn have little to no inbreeding depression, but the down side is that they can be rather variable.  Using landraces as breeding stock means that genetic bottlenecks are not as tight and small populations can be slightly more forgiving.

Corn will happily cross pollinate with other types of corn that are within a few hundred metres up to a few kilometers of each other.  This makes saving corn seed difficult unless you live on acreage and have no one growing corn near you.

As I currently live on acreage and have no one growing corn close to me I save seed from a few different types of corn.  If I get the timing right, and am vigilant with selecting seed and rogueing out off types I could probably grow half a dozen types of corn each year without too much trouble.

I grow some interesting coloured corn, most of which is popcorn or dry corn as there are very few coloured sweet corn varieties available in Australia.  I once looked online at the amazing coloured sweet corn that is available overseas and asked myself: "self, why doesnt someone in Australia breed a decent coloured sweet corn?"  I looked around for someone who was developing a decent coloured sweetcorn in Australia, I could not find them.  I did find some people who are maintaining a few coloured sweet corns and a few who are developing the most wonderful yellow or white sweet corn, but none of this is what I was after.

So I decided to try to breed one myself.

Immali Corn 2015

I have some access to different coloured field corn and some different varieties of sweet corn that the average grower would not have seen.  I researched the varieties that I have access to in order to determine the best parental stock for my new variety of corn.  I got a landrace coloured sweetcorn, which tasted ok and has a lot of genetic variation.  This was one of the parents of Immali corn.  Every generation since then has been remarkably better tasting.

Some "Immali corn" seedlings

I planted some of the coloured seeds and saved quite a lot.  The results were good, but being so early it is clearly not stable and had a way to go.  A little back crossing would help to lock in the desired colours and also maintain a high level of genetic variation.

The early cobs lacked much colour, they tasted better than store bought corn but not as great as I had hoped.  Adding colour is not all that difficult, stabilising that colour is a bit more difficult, but I can do it.

Early Immali corn (ignore the yellow) - needs more colour

Tastes great, looks ok I guess, still a way to go

The later cobs look far better and taste far better too.  It is too bad I only get one crop of corn per year so progress is painfully slow.

Look how far it has come

Some fine looking "Immali corn" cobs

Still not there but look how far it had come

They still have a way to go, it is not yet stable and I do not want to distribute this seed until it is a bit more stable.  The colour will always vary a bit, but that is kind of the point.

The taste is a bit up and down right now, some cobs taste good while others taste simply amazing, all of them taste at least as good as store bought sweet corn.  This is mainly due to timing, if picked just right they blow me away, if picked too early or late they are not as good.  I would like to work out how to fix this, the genetics behind this are a bit beyond me at the moment as I do not have access to a good corn genetics book.  By only saving seed from the best tasting plants all of the Immali Corn should taste amazing by the time the colours are locked in properly.

I worked hard to get here, we ate this cob and the colours remained unchanged through cooking

Once the strain starts to look more consistently like the cob above and is a bit more stable I hope to distribute seeds.  It may never be truly stable, it may be best if it always stays a landrace variety at least to some extent.  I hope that some dedicated seed saver somewhere will see the merits of Immali Corn and continue to grow it after I am gone.  Perhaps I should tell you what i hope to achieve in this variety.

So if I can get more of the cobs to look like the one above, and get the taste to be a bit more consistantly amazing, what else have I tried to include in this variety?

I wanted a reasonably small plant that was productive.  I figure people have less land these days so need small plants that are highly productive.  While 12 foot tall monster plants such as the Giant Inca White corn is spectacular to look at, it is not practical for Suburban Joe to grow in the corner of his yard.  The Immali Corn only grows about 5 foot tall.  It is not a dwarf plant, but it is not a giant either, I think it is a nice manageable compact size.

Immali Corn, reasonably short plants

I also wanted to create a variety that would be productive.  No point having a variety of corn that only produces 1 or 2 cobs per plant.  So far the Immali corn has produced an average of 4 cobs per plant.  I always plant corn too close and the weather is not always kind to corn, given better conditions and more space I think it could average a few more per plant.  Each stem produces 2 good sized cobs on average (some only 1, others 4), but then this variety is very prone to tillering (growing several stems).  This is probably a bad thing if you plan to harvest using a combine, but it is a great thing for home gardeners who harvest by hand.  It essentially means you get several times the corn from the same amount of space.  I am deliberately selecting for plants that produce more tillering as it is this trait that has helped raise the average number of cobs per plant.

Sideways corn picture, note the 2 cobs forming up high and 1 more lower down

 As well as a great tasting corn that is productive and takes up little space, I wanted something that was good to look at.  The cobs needed good colour, which was the primary reason behind this project.  One of the bonuses to using a coloured landrace as one of the initial stock was that the tassels sometimes are purple, it makes the plant look a bit more ornamental.

Immali Corn tassels and cobs

Immali Corn silk

Some of the cobs also display coloured silk.  I do not know if I will be able to keep this trait in this variety, but I will if I can.  It is one of the least important things I would like in the variety, but it does add something special to it.


Where can you get Immali Corn seeds?

Unfortunately for the time being you cant get Immali Corn anywhere, it is not yet stable and I do not want to release it now, stabilise it in a few years and then have confusion over which is the rubbish variety and which is the excellent variety when they both have the same name.  When I do release seeds they will probably be available through my For Sale page.

I think that you should breed some type of vegetable that you like.  Perhaps dont start with corn unless you are already experienced in breeding and saving seeds, perhaps start with a tomato or some beans or something simpler like that.  You dont need any fancy equipment, I certainly dont use anything special.  You dont need formal training in Botany or Horticulture or Genetics like I have, but you can still produce something amazing that can be treasured and passed on to others.

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Skirret a forgotten perennial vegetable

I have never met a person who dislikes Skirret (Sium sisarum) and I dont expect this to change.  Very few people in Australia grow skirret or have even heard of this remarkable vegetable, but those that have tried it all seem to like it.

Skirret seedlings still with their juvenile leaves

What is skirret

Skirret is primarily an ancient root vegetable, but the leaves, stems and seeds are also edible and tasty enough in their own way.  This perennial root crop was grown and eaten across most of Europe for centuries prior to the Spanish conquest of South America.  After this time potatoes largely replaced skirret for a number of reasons.

Skirret is a perennial vegetable which, unlike many other perennial vegetables, also freely sets viable seed each year.  Most people who grow skirret reproduce it by breaking the plant into many smaller plants after harvest and replanting them.  Similar to yacon, the part you eat of skirret is different to the part you plant so you can increase the number of plants each year easily while still being able to enjoy the full harvest.

Seed grown skirret displays a lot of genetic diversity, I assume this is because no real breeding work has ever been done on it and it is mostly propagated by division rather than seeds.  Serious breeding of vegetables often results in highly inbred strains which contain all the desired traits but have little to no genetic diversity.  Sometimes this deliberate selection goes a little too far and the plants become highly susceptible to inbreeding depression (such as has happened to carrots and corn), other times it does not appear to bother the plants too much (such as tomatoes or beans).

The same skirret seedlings getting larger

What does skirret taste like

I am bad at trying to describe what things taste like and it has been a while since I last ate skirret but I will give it a go.  Skirret tastes kind of like carrot or parsnip or even a little like sweet potato or potato, but is sweeter than any of them.  That is probably not a great description as carrot and potato taste nothing alike.  Many people use skirret in the same dishes that potato, sweet potato, parsnip or carrot would be used.

Skirret also used to be used for deserts and the like, but I am not exactly sure how/what they do with it in these meals.  As mentioned earlier, most of Europe grew and ate skirret until the potato came along so it has a long history behind it as a food plant.

Skirret contains reasonably high levels of sugars and tastes rather sweet.  When the Germans were searching for alternative plants to sugar cane they reported that skirret ranked below the white sugar beet but above red beetroot.  Some of the common names for skirret translate into things like sweet root, water parsnip and sweet water root.  From these names you get the impression that skirret is sweet and likes to grow near water.

At this point I perhaps should have re-potted the plants separately

You can see the plant in the middle is already starting to divide

Problems with skirret and how to overcome them

Skirret can have thin roots, these can be a pain to prepare for a meal.  The roots are always long and there are always copious amounts of them, but if they are too fiddly to prepare no one will bother to grow or eat this remarkable plant.

Skirret can have woody cores to the roots.  Some people do not mind this, they cook the skirret and strip the roots with their teeth and discard the core.  I cant be bothered doing this and wont eat a vegetable which requires this kind of treatment.  First year plants grown from seed tend to have the woody core, as they age the core gets smaller or apparently even disappears in improved strains.  Lots of water seems to help prevent any woodyness at all.  Considering that this plant grows in marshes in the wild it makes sense that soil moisture would be beneficial.

Skirret loves cooler weather, I dont think it matters how cold it gets the skirret is never bothered.  It goes dormant over winter and is dug/harvested/divided during that time.  It does not love the heat.  As I currently live in an arid climate, lots of heat and very little water, growing skirret takes a bit of work.  Growing in part shade, or in a styrofoam box to help insulate the soil can help this plant to grow in less than ideal climates.  I have it growing in a pot which I can submerge in water on hot windy days.

Skirret is a plant that would benefit from some serious breeding work.  Pretty much every problem it has should be simple enough to overcome if someone puts the time and resources into breeding improved skirret varieties.  I honestly think if someone was serious about breeding skirret that it would only take 3 or 4 years to turn skirret from its current form into something truly remarkable.  If you ever do this breeding and grow improved varieties of skirret let me know as I would love to buy your plants or seeds.

Strong and healthy skirret

Everything looks good

Breeding potential of skirret

One of the great things about skirret is how happily it sets seed each year and it produces many seeds even if only one plant is growing.  Being in the Apiaceae family they produce copious amounts of seed if allowed, similar to a carrot, but in skirret the seed seems to display a lot of genetic diversity even if obtained from a single plant.

Most people who grow skirret do not grow from seed, instead they find a plant and do not let it flower so that all the energy is put into root development.  I think this is a mistake as it is not difficult to find a nice skirret plant, divide it and let one of the divisions go to seed so that you can continuously improve your stock.  Leaving a single plant in your patch to flower is not that great an imposition.  While letting several plants flower would be best, a single plant flowering and setting seed would still give a crop of diverse seedlings from which to cull and only keep the best ones.  The flowers attract a lot of beneficial insects so leaving a single plant in the back corner to flower is of benefit to the rest of your vegetables.

Skirret grows many edible roots which are nice and long, so there are no issues with root length or number, the problem comes from them being too thin and often having a woody core.  It should be possible to breed for superior varieties with fatter and less woody roots.  First year plants are more likely to have woody cores and plants that do not get enough moisture will also have a woody core so selecting for lack of fiber can be a bit tricky.  That being said, many people who have selected for improved plants overseas only do so for about 2 generations and then have plants that they are happy with.

I do wonder if skirret was grown using aquaponics or wicking bed if the woody core issue would be completely resolved due to constant access to water.  If this were to be the case then skirret breeding could focus on fatter roots, having one single focus should mean that improvements are made a lot faster as culling can be more harsh.

One of the issues we have in Australia is that so few people grow skirret that we probably have a bit of a genetic bottleneck.  Hopefully the natural genetic diversity on this plant will ensure that we can still select for improved varieties and make ground reasonably fast.  I would love someone to take on skirret and breed some improved varieties, if the woody core could be bred out of skirret there is no reason that people would not grow it in backyards or even for market gardens.  As mentioned earlier I have never heard of anyone who dislikes skirret, improved varieties could make this crop more common once again.  Skirret does not always cope with summer in my climate so does not always flower (or necessarily even survive) so I probably wont do a lot of serious breeding with it.  That being said each year my skirret does flower I will save and plant seed from the best plants and cull the weaker plants.

Skirret plants with adult leaves

Where to get skirret in Australia

People who know a lot about rare vegetables often tell me that skirret is not in Australia, and due to problems importing the seed that we will never be able to grow skirret.  I dont know how to respond to them as I have grown skirret before and I am also currently growing skirret.

Skirret plants in a small pot

If I divide my plants I will try to sell some crowns over winter on my for sale page.  I will also try to save seed from my best plants each year to sell on my for sale page but skirret doesnt like the heat and aridity of my climate so I can make no assurance that I will have seed or spare plants for sale.  This year my plants are growing very strong and have all divided into several plants, one even looks as though it may be about to send up flower stalk so everything is looking positive.

Failing that some Australian seed companies occasionally carry skirret seed in small amounts and I even know of a lady in Tasmania who sells skirret plants (as well as some other rare perennial vegetables) and will post them to the mainland.  While I have never bought from her we have conversed and I believe that she is honest, that being said I take no responsibility for her service or plants.

At some stage I will include some growing notes on skirret.  If you have never tried skirret I think you should get some and grow it. 

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The effects of static magnetic fields on seed germination and plant growth

I have heard anecdotal evidence from people who claim exposing seeds to a static magnetic field increases germination rates and makes seeds germinate a lot faster.  I have heard other people claim that exposing seedlings to a magnetic field increases health of young seedlings.  To be honest I had no idea if this was accurate or not.  If this is true then I want to use magnets in germinating some seeds.

I did some research on the internet and found various papers that have been written on the subject, they appear to have conflicting results and many of the tests were often run is sub optimal conditions (often funded by companies that have a conflict of interest) with far too many variables often in completely non-scientific ways that can not be used to provide unbiased results.  Most (ie all) of the people who I know of that have tried this have not included a control, which in my mind is a waste of time.  I often read statements such as "try this and you will be amazed by the results", so I decided to try it.

To find out for myself if there is truth in this my children and I decided to run a small experiment.  If static magnets do increase the germination rates of seeds (which would be great for old seeds with low germination rates), or decrease the amount of time it takes for seeds to germinate (which would stop weaker seeds from rotting), or increases the vigor of young seedlings (which can die in the first few days while they are tiny) they could be extremely useful for me in germinating difficult seeds or very old seeds of rare varieties.  Lets face it, if this works I have a lot to gain and nothing to lose.

The three pots, unfortunately one was a different colour

The Experiment
I will probably try to write this up properly some time in the future, include some graphs of the results and try to submit it to some journal for peer review, but I dont have time right now.  For now I will write it up very simply so that you can see what happened and possibly repeat it with your own kids.

This experiment was conducted to determine if a static magnetic field would affect seed germination or the early growth of seedlings.

This study divided wheat (Triticum spp) seeds into three groups.  Each group was comprised of 100 wheat seeds randomly chosen from a sack of feed wheat.  The first group was to germinate in the presence of a strong static magnet field delivered from a Neodymium magnet (approximately 0.6751 tesla).  The second group was to germinate in the presence of a weak static magnet field delivered from a small refrigerator magnet of unknown strength.  The third grew was to germinate in the absence of any added magnetic field to act as a control. 

Several growth parameters were observed throughout the experiment including the germination rate, leaf length, and root length.  In addition the health status of seedlings was measured through observation of leaf color, spots, visual presence of disease, stem curvature, and seedling mortality.  Plant growth was observed continuously for the duration of the experiment.

Three square 10cm plastic pots were filled with potting soil from the same bag to the same depth.  The three pots were watered by submerging the pots in water until the soil was thoroughly soaked.  Each pot was then surface sowed with 100 wheat seeds.  For the duration of the experiment each pot was watered from below once a week so as not to disturb the magnets or the emerging seedlings.  Each magnet was wrapped in a single sheet or 3 ply toilet paper inside a small plastic zip lock bag and placed on top of the seeds.  This was done to protect the magnets from corrosion as well as obscure which magnet was in which group.  To reduce the presence of any variables the control had a small non magnetic stone of similar weight to the magnets, wrapped in toilet paper inside a small plastic zip lock bag.  The three bags were then shuffled and chosen at random to be placed on the seeded pots of soil to ensure a blind test.

The magnets were placed on their side so that some seeds would be close to the North pole, some close to the South pole and others along the edge.  This was intended to show if either pole had a positive or negative effect on germination of the seeds.

After 5 days seeds in all three pots began to germinate.  It appeared as if seeds from all parts of all pots were germinating at the same rate.  It appeared that all three pots had similar germination in terms of the number of seeds germinating, progression of root growth, progression of leaf growth, as well as angle of root or leaf growth.

After 14 days seedlings from all three pots were counted and measured.  Seedlings from all three groups had similar height, similar health as indicated by colour, lack of spots, and visual stem curvature.  All three groups had no seedling mortality throughout the duration of the experiment.

The high magnetic group had 98% germination.

The low magnetic group had 100% germination.

The control group had 99% germination.
The time to germination from all three pots was identical which indicates that magnets have no noticeable effect on germination time.

In addition to the germination rates being similar (98% to 100%), the leaf length, root length and health of seedlings from each batch appeared to be identical.  I had planned on weighing the seedlings from each group to determine fresh biomass but discovered that separating the roots from the potting mix was not possible.

A blind test, I didnt know which pot has the magnet or stone

The results from this small experiment indicate that there is no noticeable effect on the germination of seeds in terms of germination time or germination rate due to either strong or weak static magnetic fields.  It appears that a static magnetic field has no noticeable effect on the vigor/health of young seedlings.  The pots with magnets had similar looking seedlings growing on all areas of the pot which indicates that the polarity of the magnet also had no noticeable effect on germination or early growth.

This was a blind test and it was not until after the seedlings were counted and measured that I opened the little zip lock bags to discover which pot had which magnet.  I figure if this was worth doing it was worth doing properly.


My thoughts
While I was kind of disappointed by this result in hindsight it is not overly surprising.  If any positive difference would be seen then seed magnetisation would be used by commercial farmers.  Farmers have tight profit margins and often grow in hostile environments, they are willing to do whatever it takes to make their crops thrive and magnetisation would be reasonably cheap and simple to apply.  The fact that seed magnetisers are only seen being sold by a few sketchy online sellers and are not seen in rural stores or used by many commercial farmers hints that it may not be all that useful.  It was still worth testing to see for myself.

I have already started to run a similar experiment again and changed some of the parameters, the use of sand instead of soil will allow me to weigh the fresh or dry biomass and see if there is any difference there.  An extra 100 seeds in each group is only going to make the data better.

I am using seeds from a dicot instead of a monocot to see if that makes any noticeable difference.  Doing this experiment using seeds with naturally high germination rates as I did possibly obscures the results as germination rates could not really get any higher.  The seeds in the second test are older and have lower germination rates so I should be able to see if the magnets make any noticeable difference on germination rates that are not close to 100%.

I am also planning to grow seedlings for a longer time to see if any noticeable difference is made as they get larger, in the future I may even grow them to maturity to determine if any difference is made to overall yield or time to maturity (Micro Tom tomatoes seem like a great choice for this).  There are also a few other things that I may considering trying in the future that may make the experiment a little more robust.

Micro Tom tomatoes, tiny plants with a short lifecycle makes them ideal for experiments

When I conclude this second experiment I plan to post the results (or a link to the results) here.

If you also try this little experiment please ensure you are removing as many variables as possible and do it as a blind test with a control so that the results are accurate.  Feel free to let me know your results.

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I repeated the experiment using some old cress (Lepidium sativum) seeds that would have a lower percentage of germination and I grew them out for a bit longer.  Again I used 100 seeds per group but this time all of the pots were exactly the same.  

The time to germination was identical in all groups.  The plants in all groups looked similar in terms of height, number of leaves, colour, angle of leaf growth etc.  The motality rate was identical in all three groups (4 seedlings germinated then died in each group).  I did not weigh the seedlings as I assume they would weigh less than 1 gram collectively and my scales are not accurate enough to record any differences.  Due to less than ideal conditions all 3 groups then started to grow mould which infected all seedlings similarly and all plants are succumbing at a similar rate.  I am going to let this continue to see if there is any noticeable difference in the groups but at this stage that looks unlikely.

The percentage germination was the only area where I could see even a slight difference.  The control group had 24 seeds germinate, the strong magnet had 22 seeds germinate and the weak magnet had 30 seeds germinate.  

This is certainly not the miracle difference in growth and/or germination that I had hoped for, it is not going to be the magic bullet to help germinate tricky or weak seeds.  The difference between 24% germination of the control and 30% germination for the weak magnet is not enough for me to think that the magnets are creating a difference of any kind.

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If it is worth doing it is worth doing right. 

Some people have asked me why I only have 100 seeds in each group.  The answer is because if I have any more seeds they are too far from the magnet to experience the magnetic field.  I agree this test would be more valid with larger numbers, to help overcome this I have run the experiment several times using several different species to see if I obtain any significant difference.

I repeated this again with some older garlic chive (Allium tuberosum) seeds that I had left in a paper bag.  As the seeds were aging I had expected germination rates to be low. 

I used 100 randomly chosen seeds in each pot and used three identical pots filled with sand.  Again I used the strong magnet, the weak magnet and the non magnetic stone as a control.  As before I did not know which group was which until after I had counted the seedlings.

The time to germination was identical in each pot, the health and size of seedlings in each pot was also identical.  The early growth rates of the seedlings was identical.  I tried to weigh the seedlings after the experiment but my scales were not accurate enough to record any differences.

The control group had 64 seeds germinate, the weak magnet had 61 seeds germinate and the strong magnet had 65 seeds germinate.

Just like the previous experiments I am far from amazed by these results.  Their seems to be little to no effect of a static magnetic field, either strong or weak, on seed germination and early plant growth.

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From here I want to run this little experiment again using the Micro tomatoes from planting the seeds until maturity so I can count and weigh the fruit to see if there is any improvement in crop yield.  I will probably only be able to grow 3 seeds of each in this experiment as I do not have enough magnets to grow larger numbers. 

Due to moving etc I may not get around to this for some time though, if I do I plan to post the results here or if the results are interesting I may write another post and link to it from here.

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How to graft tomato to a potato

Question:  What do you call a plant that is a tomato and a potato grafted together?  A tomtato?  A potmato?
Answer:  I dont know and I dont care.


Grafting Tomato scion to Potato rootstock

Potatoes and tomatoes are both closely related, they can be grafted to each other easily enough.  With a little effort a chilli, tomatillo, potato, tomato, ground cherry, eggplant and a few other things including some agricultural weeds can graft onto one another as they are all closely related.  If you could be bothered they could all be grafted onto a strong rootstock and a multi-grafted vegetable garden shrub could be created.

Many varieties of each of these plants are perennial, so in theory if a hardy perennial root stock was chosen a grafted perennial vegetable plot in one plant could be the result.  Yields would be low for each plant and care would need to be taken to ensure one graft did not take over the others, but it would be easy enough to create.  Perhaps I should make one next year just to prove how simple it is.

About 20 years ago I grafted the top of a tomato plant to the bottom of a potato plant.  I did not have grafting tape or grafting clips but I did misappropriate some plumbing tape from school and used that.  I had never grafted anything, I had never seen anyone graft, I had no one to answer questions or guide me, I had no books to read (and as far as I knew the internet did not exist) but I had heard about grafting so decided to give it a go.  How hard could it be?

I had hopes of getting two crops for the same amount of space and water.  It kind of worked, I guess.  I certainly got a crop of tomatoes, but the non grafted one in the next row cropped better.  At the end of the season I certainly got a crop of potatoes, but the non grafted potatoes returned a far larger crop.  Both crops tasted just as they should and looked normal.  The grafted plant used quite a lot more water than I would have expected, much more than the tomato plants or the potato plants in the other rows.  I considered it to be a failure due to the extra work resulting in lower crops an higher water for the same amount of space, in hind sight it was probably a success as the plant lived and cropped and I learned from the experience.

Recently I have seen these grafted tomato/potato plants being sold.  One very arrogant man claims that he is a genius who invented this process about 5 years ago.  Too late, I did it 20 years ago when I was a teenager and I seriously doubt that I was the first to try this successfully.

A few people claim that this method of grafting increases yields from both plants, unfortunately from my experience I do not believe them.  You will get both crops, but the crops are both smaller.  Larger crops from a grafted plant such as this is illogical.  If you do not have much space and can only grow one plant then this trade off may be well worth it.  I dont see the need to make erroneous claims, people will still buy the plants if you tell them the truth.  I sell a lot of interesting vegetables, there is no need to exaggerate as people who want them will buy them.

It would be interesting to see just how poorly these grafted potato tomato plants crop.  I should run some field trials to see if growing potato and tomato in the same pot will yield differently to a grafted tomato potato.  I wish I did not have to go to work so I had more time to do interesting experiments like this.

I also have read about someone from a large plant/seed/gardening company who claims to have been the first to have ever thought of the idea 15 years ago (but never actually tried it until more recently), again I not only thought of this but successfully tried it earlier than that!  If a teenager with no experience, no resources, no education or mentor can do this it cant be that difficult and I wish people would stop trying to big note themselves with such simple things.  I honestly believe that people have been trying this and succeeding for a few hundred years but it has not gone anywhere as the yields are too low to bother.  This type of grafting is simple, it is unproductive which makes it uncommon, being uncommon means that people have not seen it before and are often taken in by these lies.  Perhaps next Spring I should run some grafting courses and teach people how to create these grafted plants at home.

Tomato flowers

Reisetomate tomato flowers

Grafting Potato scion onto Tomato rootstock

Enough of my rant (for now), I dont want to talk about grafting the top of a tomato the the bottom of a potato.  I want to talk about the opposite.

This year I grafted the top of a potato plant (called the scion) to the roots of a tomato (called the rootstock).  You may ask why the devil would anyone do that, the resultant grafted plant would produce neither tomatoes or potatoes so would be a waste of time and space.  Well it is simple, I wanted potato seed.

Modern potatoes are grown from existing potatoes, they are genetic clones of their parent, it is essentially the same plant.  Seed potatoes are just small potatoes, a stem fragment from the parent.

I wanted to grow potatoes from seeds, true seeds, each and every one of them would be unique.  Some would be dreadful, some mediocre and perhaps some would be great.  I wanted to see if I could create a new variety that is better suited to my needs and will grow better in my climate.  To do that the potato plant needs to flower, then it needs to grow fertile seeds, often a potato left to itself refuses to flower.  Grafting onto a tomato will help to make this happen.

When I was a child we had an unknown variety of potato that would set seed each year.  I used to grow these seeds and nothing great ever came from them.  Each seed grown plant was different, they grew differently, some had slightly different colours, but the parent stock was dodgy and did not have the genetic potential to grow anything truly great.  I used to think it was my fault that nothing exceptional came out of that and felt like a failure, now that I am better educated I know that I actually achieved a lot back then.

I have a variety of potato that never flowers in my climate.  I dont know if it flowers anywhere.  Many modern potatoes no longer flower.  It is a great variety, it is easy enough to buy, but it struggles to crop well in this climate.  When I have grown this variety in other climates and without exaggeration it has cropped about 20 times higher than it crops here (I weigh things and keep pointlessly accurate records).  Planting certified virus free seed potato into new soil does not help, this variety struggles in my climate as it is not really suited to growing here.  But it tastes so good which makes me want to grow it.

If I could get some seed from this potato there is a chance I could grow a similar tasting potato that crops well here.  To do that I need it to flower and set viable seed.  This is a decent parent plant and has the genes to produce some exceptional new varieties of potato, but in the 7 or so years I have grown it I have never seen any flowers.

This year I grafted that potato scion onto tomato rootstock to induce flowering and hopefully convince it to grow fruit and set viable seeds.  As the potato will not be putting any energy into tuber formation it will be more likely to flower and more likely to have the energy to set viable seed.  I chose the most vigorous tomato I have and grafted them using tongue approach grafting or inarching as it is the simplest and most fool proof way to graft.  This is how grafting happens most often in nature, it is simple, fast to do and once done it is very low maintenance.  I could have chosen other forms of grafting but why make things harder than they have to be.

Picture thanks to http://extension.umass.edu/floriculture/fact-sheets/grafting-techniques-greenhouse-tomatoes

I grew a tomato seedling in a pot and the potato plant in the soil.  When the plants were both the right size (ie it had nothing to do with size, it was when I could find the time) I put a small cut into each stem part way through.  I then joined the two together and bound them with plumbers tape.  I still do not have grafting clips or grafting tape, but the plumbing tape works well enough for me, this time I bought the tape instead of helping myself to it.  Then I left the plants with two tops and two sets of roots so that the graft union could heal.  Perhaps my description is not that useful, the picture above shows roughly how I did it, but my plants were larger and much older than in the picture.

After the graft had taken (ie several weeks later when I found time) I cut off the top of the tomato and the bottom of the potato and was left with a grafted plant with tomato roots and potato leaves.  The potato plant went on to continue growing and eventually produced a crop (which is why it was in the soil to begin with) and the top of the tomato was used as a cutting so nothing was wasted.  I had a grafted plant in a pot which I planted into the vegetable garden.

I then had a plant with the roots of a tomato and the top of a potato.  I left the grafting tape on for another week or two then unwrapped it, the union was strong enough by this time and the tape was getting too tight.  The tape could possibly be removed earlier but this works for me so I have not experimented with other methods.

We are hoping to sell our house so I only grafted the one plant.  I did not want to put in a lot of time to graft a lot of plants only to sell and move leaving behind treasures like this that would not be appreciated.  Unfortunately we still are yet to find the right buyer, had I known this I would have planted a lot differently this year, hind sight is great.

This grafted plant flowered well, extremely well.  Considering that I have grown this potato variety for so many years and never seen a flower I think it is safe to conclude that grafting the top of a potato to the roots of a tomato actually does help the plant to flower.

There are a lot of different pollinators around my garden, I never saw them on the potato flowers but they may have been there when I was not looking.  I tried to pollinate the flowers in the same way that one pollinates tomato flowers, I think it worked.

Potato Flowers - the grafting worked

The plant started to produce fruit.  This is exactly what I had hoped would happen.  Then the ducks got in to the vegetable garden, they stomped around the garden a bit, broke a lot of plants, ate some leaves off things, messed around stealing vegetables and ate some fruit off the trees.

The grafted potato/tomato plant was still alive but all the fruit was missing, I dont know if the ducks ate the fruit or if they rolled away somewhere.  If they rolled away there is a chance they may grow next year but I doubt I will find them or even know that they are not just the normal potatoes.  The grafted plant continued flowering for a while but those flowers all aborted and did not produce any fruit, probably due to the heat.

If I try this again the next time I will try to graft a few more plants to help provide a little insurance against this kind of thing.  Nothing much can be done now apart from wait.

Since writing this post I have wondered if I should dig up the grafted plant and try to overwinter it.  I know the tomato rootstock can survive if I protect it from frost but I am not sure about the potato part.  I wondered if it was worth my time even trying, perhaps it would flower and set seed better, perhaps it would simply die, I dont know anyone who has tried to keep a plant like this alive for several years.  Come to think of it, I dont know anyone who has created a grafted plant like this one.

Once again the ducks got into the vegetable garden, they kind of made up my mind for me.  The top of the plant is now dead/missing, the roots are possibly still alive, if they sprout leaves I will let the frost kill it when it is time.  This type of grafting is worth another try if I have any land next year as it seemed to help the potato to flower, once I get this potato variety to produce viable seed then the fun part begins.  Perhaps I should get a different type of potato that flowers and fruits readily and cross them.  For now I am happy that grafting helps flowering and fruit set.

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OSU Blue tomato

I have grown a lot of interesting tomatoes over the past few years, one of the more interesting tomatoes I grew last year was the OSU Blue tomato.  I have had a lot of questions over it so thought I would write a blog post.

OSU Blue tomato

OSU Blue was one of the first high anthocyanin tomatoes, it was bred using conventional methods (ie NOT GM).  In case you were wondering "OSU" is an acronym for Oregon State University.

From what I have read this tomato was developed by Jim Myers, OSUs Baggett Frazier professor of vegetable breeding and graduate students Carl Jones and Peter Mes.  The genes involved in producing the OSU Blue tomato are Aubergine (Abg), Anthocyanin fruit tomato (Aft) and atroviolaceae (atv), these genes came from the wild species Solanum lycopersicoides, S chilense, S cheesemanii, respectively.

This means that, just like every other domestic tomato, the OSU Blue is a complex yet stable hybrid.  I am happy to say that this is a very stable hybrid just like many other types of tomato and seeds are simple to save and they grow true to type.  Being derived from the wild tomato species I had hoped it would be resistant to a bunch of diseases, at this stage I dont know if it is or not.

On a side note I rather like S cheesemanii but they are as rare as hens teeth in Australia, if you happen to be growing any please talk to me as I would love to get some seeds from you.

The anthocyanin is the same colour that is in eggplants and it is a rich antioxidant.  The fruit ripens to a dark blue/purple/black colour wherever sunlight hits it, anywhere the light does not hit ripens red.  If a leaf or calyx or whatever is on the fruit it gets a shadow of red.  If you were to put a sticker on the unripe fruit it remains red underneath allowing for all sorts of sillyness such as spelling out the names of your kids one letter per tomato.

OSU Blue Tomato, not overly large

 The plants grow and look much like any other tomato plant.  They are indeterminate and grow a regular leaf, the flowers are yellow and much the same as any other tomato.  The leaves and stems may take on a little purple colour if the temperatures are low and the light intensity is high.  When the days get too hot the plant does not colour up as much.  The fruit takes on more colour with low temperatures and high intensity light.  People who grow these to sell seeds on Ebay and such use grow lights to get the fruit to take on more dark colour.  The colour seems to be variable even on the same plant, my plants grew a range of dark to super dark fruits.

The fruit are small, but not too small, about 4cm across.  The dark colour is mainly concentrated in the skin and a little in the flesh just under the skin.  The flesh remains red and the seeds look much like any other tomato seeds.

OSU Blue

OSU Blue with some skin removed

One question I get about the OSU Blue tomato is about the taste.  If you read about any of the high anthocyanin tomatoes on the Oregon State University web page they sound like they taste absolutely terrible.  In reality they taste ok,  certainly not the greatest tasting nor the worst tasting.  If I had to choose one word to describe the taste it would be "underwhelming".

They tasted slightly better than an average store bought tomato.  Tomatoes from the shops are pretty dreadful at the best of times so this is not a glowing review.  If you are expecting a great tasting tomato because it is home grown then you will be disappointed, other than that they are ok.  It does taste better than other tomatoes I have grown such as apollo (or possibly roma) so are not all that bad.

They lacked any real depth of flavour, they were not very sweet and were not very sour.  They were not overly insipid which was a positive, but they really didnt make a memorable impression on my taste wise.  I have certainly eaten a lot worse tasting tomatoes.

Unripe OSU Blue tomatoes

The blue colour starts long before the fruit is ripe, the unripe tomatoes look very nice while you wait for them to ripen and become edible.  The plant itself is nothing spectacular, it does not crop all that heavily and is not overly robust.  That being said it was not a weak plant and did return a reasonable yield in far less than ideal conditions.

I saved a reasonable amount of seed from my plants and do plan on growing this variety again.  I have a few breeding plans and would love to incorporate the colour into a better tasting, higher yielding variety.  I have seen some people use this to breed a great tasting tomato that has the black/blue skin but is yellow on the inside, I have also read about someone who grew tomatoes that were red and had dark stripes like a tiger.  Lots of fun.  There are many options and I only have so much space/time to pursue them.  We will be moving to town  shortly so I may not be allowed to grow many vegetables for a while.

I have also been asked how they got into Australia.  I have no idea how this variety found its way to Australia, it was bred after they closed the doors on the importation of tomato seeds.  Perhaps a university or the CSIRO imported them legally and they leaked out from there, perhaps some private grower or a sneaky large seed company imported them on the sly and was able to evade quarantine (please do not try this).  Perhaps someone or some company payed a small fortune to get the right tests done in order to legally import them.  The person who I got the seeds from initially received them unsolicited from another grower and asked no questions.

I guess I will never know how they got into the country, I also dont particularly care.  Now that they are here I can grow them, distribute them and use them in all kinds of tomato breeding projects.

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