Yacon: vegetable, plant, cultivation in the ground, care, photo

Yacon can be happily grown on your site. For its unusual look and sweet, crunchy roots.

Yacon vegetable: what kind of plant?

Yacon: photo of the plant

It is a perennial, herbaceous plant from the Aster family. His distant kinship ties, connect him with the familiar to us Jerusalem artichoke and sunflower. It is a fairly vigorous plant with abundant, large foliage and yellow buds. In warm countries, it can reach two and a half meters in height, while varieties that are adapted to Russian conditions can grow up to only one and a half meters. Its harvest is formed on the root system. However, not only yacon fruits are eaten, but also young trunks of culture.

Yacon plant: varieties

In our conditions in you, yacon is not very popular because the colder the place of growth, the less benefit in the fruit, because it simply loses inulin.
There are three suitable varieties for our latitudes:

• Yudinka;
• Bios;
• Sochi.

They can be grown even in the harshest conditions.

Yacon: breeding

Yacon: photo of a vegetable

In the homeland of yacon, it is propagated with the help of: seeds, division of the rhizome, cuttings, cuttings. For our conditions, only two options are suitable, namely: division of the rhizome and planting of divisions. The seeds simply do not have time to ripen.

With the help of seedlings

You can start growing seedlings in the middle of winter. Prepared rhizomes should be placed in a container, on the bottom of which there is already a wet layer of fabric, sawdust and coconut flakes. In order for the humidity to be ideally maintained, it is necessary to create greenhouse conditions by covering the whole thing with a transparent film.

The humidity inside the greenhouse should be about eighty percent. You need to ventilate every day and do not forget to moisturize as it dries.

Shoots will appear in about ten to fifteen days, their height will be ten to fifteen millimeters. You need to cut it so that there is at least one healthy shoot on each root. Then you need to sprinkle the cut with coal powder and sit in a small pot.

The land should be rich in nutrients and consist of peat and turf soil.

Using cuttings

If there are not very many parental specimens, but you want a plentiful harvest, then you can resort to this method. Still green stalks need to be cut so that they have two or four leaves. For this method, it is better to use peat tablets with a substrate from sod and peat soil, you can also add their organic humus.

The temperature regime should be within twenty-twenty-two degrees of heat.

The daily consumption of light is approximately ten to twelve hours.

After the yacon cuttings have taken root, the temperature can be lowered down to twelve degrees Celsius to keep them from stretching. As daylight hours begin to grow, so it will be possible to increase the temperature. You need to fertilize one crayfish every ten to twelve days, with simple complex mineral dressings.

For this type of reproduction, not only green, but also lignified cuttings are suitable, just green ones take root faster and form yacon roots.

Yacon: growing plant

Yacon: photo of the plant

You need to start disembarking after you can make sure that there will be no more frosts.
The yacon vegetable can grow on all types of soil, but fertile sandy loam will be the most favorable for it.

If the soil is too poor, then you can fix it with: organic humus, ash and complex fertilizers.Loam can be refined with coarse sand. The day before transplanting, the containers with plants need to be thoroughly moistened.

After transplanting, watering will also be required. You need to plant seedlings at a distance from each other so that it is at least sixty centimeters.

Yacon: care

Yacon: photo plant

The main disadvantage in his care is that the yacon needs to be watered every day, because its large leaves evaporate a huge amount of liquid from themselves. You need to fertilize the culture only once every thirty days.

It is also better to mulch the yacon, as this will help to retain moisture and avoid a huge amount of unnecessary weeds. In order for the crop to be large, strong and juicy, the plant needs to be spud from time to time.

Harvest time and how to store it

Yacon vegetable: photo

Harvesting yacon fruits is carried out in the autumn. The trunks and foliage of the plant are cut, they can be given to pets, or brewed into tea. The root system itself is dug up and the ripe crop is separated from it. Rhizomes need to be preserved, not thrown away, because this is a planting tool.
You need to leave a small part of the trunk on them, and remove the roots. Next, they need to be dried in a room with good air circulation and a low percentage of humidity, for about ten to fourteen days.

After drying, they need to be sorted out, namely:

• Throw away already unusable and damaged copies;
• Cut off parts that have rotted;
• Disinfect the cut sites with coal powder;
• Place in containers with organic humus.

For storage purposes, a pantry with a temperature range from zero to five degrees Celsius is well suited.

Freshly dug fruits, very liquid and rich, but unfortunately have no taste, because they need to be kept in a warm place with an abundance of light so that they dry out properly and wrinkle their rind. After this procedure, they will acquire an apple-melon flavor.

You can store yacon in containers with disinfected, coarse sand. If the temperature of the content is within four to five degrees of heat, then the fruits will be in excellent condition until the spring.

Yacon: photo