Growing chicory from root

Hello everyone,

Has anyone grown coffee chicory from root cuttings with huge success? Any special technique? Advice?

Thank you.

Erich

1) I've never used root cuttings, I grow all my chicory from seed. Right now I have an abundance of seed, if you need any, send me a PM with your address.

2) I'm not much of a coffee drinker, so I have done no roasting and brewing of the roots. I don't even eat the plants that much, I use them more for animal feed.

3) They grow great on hugelkultur mounds. I have to chop them back to give other plants a chance.

4) They don't grow as well on compacted clay, which is what the yard is outside of the garden. I tried to get it to naturalize in the lawn, and a few plants came up, but they are puny compared to the hugelkultur plants.

Thank you, John. This is helpful! I am in Thailand and July is rainy season. The chicory is in flower, but I am wondering if the seeds will disintegrate in all of this moisture. How long do they flower? My oldest plant has been flowering for at least 2 months.

Do you just let them go and dry on the stalks?

Erich

Mine has also been flowering for about the last two or three months. If I don't cut it back, it will keep sending up stalks and flowering until the cold weather arrives. At that point, it reverts to whatever form the leafy type is (I have witloof, radicchio, frastagliate, and two others) and spends the winter slowly growing leaves. By October or November, all of the stalks are dried up and it begins to regrow at the base.

Last July we had a very wet month, I imagine it was a lot like your rainy season, and the seeds held up well. If you wait for the little seed capsules to turn from green to brown, that is when you can pull them and open them up to get the dozen or so seeds that are inside. A stem can contain a mix of brown and green capsules, and if you wait for them all to turn brown, you may find that a large number have burst open on their own and dropped their seed. You may want to go out on a weekly basis with a cup and squeeze the brown seed pods so they drop their seeds into the cup. Just like cutting the leaves, the seeds of chicory are also something that you can come back again and again to collect.

John, are you able to diagnose from this pic? The brown buds I picked from this just evaporated between my fingers.

John, update: the blind can see.

I compared the plant from this pic to another and was able to find those little seeds! Thank you for your patience with me.

Anyone interested: the chicory root sprouted from 1 to 2 inch bits in a tiny, homemade greenhouse. Amazing plant.

I bare handed pulled my chicory intybus from the roadside years ago. I have transplanted roots with stems and leaves year after year with minor foliage on them in cooler times. They have grown massive and abundant. I have tasted the leaves and realize I could stand to learn a lot about cooking. (bitter beyond tolerance of this o lad). My plants are in north Texas...came from Appalachian Mts. Their roots are going to be tested for coffee additive/substitute this fall before transplanting to the "outback" (slightly desert area in my backyard). No doubt some will survive in the front, moist flowerbed and all will be compared for climate/moisture  happiness. I reckon I will intentionally leave a couple or so in the front bed. I anticipate there could be seed ready to germinate in that same front bed area. We'll see. I hope this helps your root rooting/propagating ideas.

Any chance someone has some chicory root that they could send me? I’m in East Tennessee.

Bob, I got mine from a roadside ditch, dug in with a spade pretty deep then levered it up. Took home the roots and planted them. Most grew. Waiting to see if they come back this year. It grows along every roadsode around here, easy to spot the pretty blue flowers.

Bob Spencer wrote:Any chance someone has some chicory root that they could send me? I’m in East Tennessee.

I’ve always found that chicory grows just about anywhere there’s disturbed ground, clay soils, and/or fence lines. It’s got a pretty distinctive look; the blue flowers grow right up against the thick stems and it stands a few feet tall. Once you learn to identify chicory, you start noticing it everywhere—at least, that’s how it’s been for me.

I’ve got about three different patches in my 1/2 ac yard, just from where we didn’t really mow or weed eat and it came up naturally. That might be a thing to try—let a patch of yard go a little wild and see what comes up. You might already have some!

If I didn’t already have some, I’d go to an abandoned lot, a fence line on the side of the road, or somewhere similar—somewhere there tends to be full sun—and look for them there. (Easiest in mid summer or early fall.) Then I’d either dig a couple or save seed. Probably I’d save my money for hard to get plants that I’ve never seen around here.

I did save some seed from chicory this last year but now I cannot remember where I put it…