Share your experiences growing ground nut: apios americana

This is an old thread but I have grown ground nuts for a couple years now.
This is the first year I got seed pods. I have one pot of vines that produced pods.
All my other vines on different types of ground nuts flowered but not pods.

I got my hand on one seed last year and this year it is lame but alive, I am expecting it to do much better next year.

I tried to grow these things. I believe that they aren't very suited to a cool climate. It seemed I planted them and they more or less stayed the same size no matter how long they were there. Kind of like Sweet potatoes in a cool climate.
John S
PDX OR

I got the seed (I meant tuber) in Vermont on the side of a road and it was a pretty big plant, so I think there must be varieties that will do better in cold climate.

It could be. Back east, you get hot humid days all day and all night. Here it cools off during the night, which helps you sleep, but doesn't make for lots of growth in say, tomatoes and okra. so it might be ok or maybe not. We don't get really cold in the winter here, but we don't get that hot in the summer, especially at night.
john S
PDX OR

good point, we'll see how it does, I applied the very complicated STUN technique on that plant this year. I had given up on it, thinking it had rotten in the ground and one day I saw the leaves and the vine.

In the foragers harvest, by Samuel Thayer, the author has a good chapter on groundnut, or Hopniss, Apios americana, Pages, 234-245. "It thrives in full to partial sunlight, common associates include swamp white oak, elderberry, jerusalem artichoke, what someone refers to as sunchke i think, poison ivy, and riverside grape.
itis adapted to both dry and waterlogged conditions. north america is home to one additionalspecies of Hopniss, Apios priceana, that produces a larger tuber not in chains like the apios americana.

the tubers should not be eaten raw. the plant contains potentially harmful protease inhibitors (chemicals that interfere with protein metabolism). the author has noticed cases of potential allergy to the tubers.he hasn't colelcted big numbers but has had a few cases. he askes people that have these symptoms to contac him to let him collect more evidence and try to understand what may be the cause. In any case a persone eating the tuber for the first time should do it with caution keeping in mind that this plant has a history of causing allergic or intolerance reactions.
I have to run, but when I'll be back I'll give some more info on the tubers and the potential allergy.

One of the links shared a couple of times in this thread has gone dead, but I was able to find a new URL for the article in question:

http://www.wildflowers-and-weeds.com/Edible_Plants/Articles/Hopniss.htm

I grew some this year in three different gardens. Only one succeeded, the others finished the season with the same size tuber.
Anyway, I was hoping to get some seeds, but only got beautiful flowers.
Is Apios americana autosterile?
Thanks.

By the way, the article referenced just above my post has gone away. The Internet archive still has it, better save it before it's gone for good.

I have been growing a tuber since a few years. I tried it in three different climates. In the subartic in Iceland it overwintered easily (zone 5) but it did not thrive. It needs a nice warm summer, despite being being very cold hardy in winter. Indoors it grows nicely but eventually dies if attacked by spider mites. In Austria, continental climate (zone 7, warm summers) and Portugal (Mediterranean, zone 9) it grows really well and easy, it thrives during the warm summer weather and it produces a nice string of tubers. It climbs and grow strongly (starts late in spring and dies early in autumn), it flowers but mines have not yet set seed.

Has anyone tried to eat them? I might try it now for the first time.

Hi all – if any of you are still tracking this thread, could you possibly let me know if you are still growing any of the named and/or numbered improved groundnut varieties from Dr. Blackmon's breeding program? Particularly from Oikos or Baker Creek, but any other named/numbered also-  I will have several of the improved varieties available to trade later this Fall-  Thanks, Trish