All Things Apios Americana

p.s. for myself and future breeders- this year's seeds will be possible crosses between Dr. Morales' stock, Tripple Creek/Scatterseed, 1972-Simon, 2155-Orson, 2183-Roux, and possibly 2127 (unnamed) (haven't found any flowers yet in the tangle of sunchokes.)  Note also one additional benefit of growing groundnuts up sunchokes – the flowers of the sunchokes are attracting an incredible number of different pollinators, including mason bees, butterflies, honeybees, and various flies.  But, one drawback to using sunchokes as a living trellis – 2127 and 2183 were growing vigorously over the ground before the sunchokes even sprouted up through the strawbales. The sunchokes quickly outgrew the groundnuts and gave the groundnuts a good trellis, but the beginning didn't work real well.

Thanks for reading, everyone!  

Groundnuts are on my shopping list. Oikos advertised 2 Maine varieties.

Thanks for the info, David-  I got 2183 and 2127 from Oikos this past Spring, but the "Virginia Groundnut" grab bag of genetic material is new.  If I get seed from the varieties I already have this summer I'll pass on "Virginia," since any seeds I can grow out here will already have come from LSU's and Dr. Cannon's improved selections.  It would be great to compare performance of the same varieties where you are in Maine- are you already growing some?

First harvest of 2017, of 2183-Roux and 2127 (unnamed.) Two seed tubers of each, received Summer 2017 from Oikos Tree Crops.  2127-unnamed had a *lot* less water than 2183-Roux; operator error on that one, so poor results should not be taken as predictor of next year's harvest...    

Here's a recap of the the notes I'll be entering on each following photo:

2183-Roux, grown in leftover potting soil and partially decomposed woodchips, with a layer of ground paper next, then Houston black clay underneath.  One of the two varieties grown up sunchokes.

Seed tuber #1
Total longest string length, seed tuber to the last new tuber: little less than 6'
3 bearing shoots- one from side of tuber, one from underground/buried section of plant stem, one from aboveground stem.

Seed tuber #2
Total longest string length, seed tuber to the last new tuber:  5' 1"
3 bearing shoots with same placement as above.
Middle shoot (on underground part of plant stem) had only 2 tubers.
Shoot that came from the tuber itself was the longest.
The most interesting part of this particular grow-out was that about two thirds of the way along the longest shoot, the growing shoot hit a large clump of Houston black clay – within that ball of clay, I found a small swollen node that had split into two separate shoots.  Shoots went back up into the woodchip stratum next, thereafter as you can see the tuber placement is considerably closer, with tuber size much more uniform.
This may indicate a thicker, more clayey soil could make tuber production closer together on a string, with more uniform tuber size.  I'll be watching for this trait next year.

2127-unnamed, grown in leftover potting soil and partially decomposed woodchips, with a layer of ground paper next, then Houston black clay underneath.  One of the two varieties grown up sunchokes.  2127 had much less water than 2183 ; the groundnuts were grown at ground level on the north side of strawbales, where in the sunchokes had been planted. The 2127 was grown at the base of the far end of the strawbale row, at the southwest end, the hottest and driest area.

Seed tuber #1
Total longest string length, seed tuber to the last new tuber: 1' 1"
Single shoot is from tuber.
One conjoined tuber.

Seed tuber #2
Total longest string length, seed tuber to the last new tuber: 10 1/2"
Two shoots, both from the underground part of the plant stem.
One conjoined tuber on the face of the seed tuber itself.
Several additional shoots coming off the other end of the seed tuber, all broken off. This is actually the first tuber that I dug up, so it's quite possible I didn't recognize what the shoots were at that point and snapped them off, leaving additional tubers in the ground. I'll go out looking for them later.

2183-Roux, Seed tuber #1
Total longest string length, seed tuber to the last new tuber: little less than 6'

2183-Roux, Seed tuber #1
3 bearing shoots- one from side of tuber, one from underground/buried section of plant stem, one from aboveground stem.

2183-Roux, Seed tuber #2
Total longest string length, seed tuber to the last new tuber:  5' 1" (note seed tuber is very small)

2183-Roux, Seed tuber #2
3 bearing shoots with same placement as above.
Middle shoot (on underground part of plant stem) had only 2 tubers.

2183-Roux, Seed tuber #2
Shoot that came from the tuber itself was the longest.

2183-Roux, Seed tuber #2
The most interesting part of this particular grow-out was that about two thirds of the way along the longest shoot, the growing shoot tip hit a large clump of Houston black clay – within that ball of clay, I found a small swollen node that had split into two separate shoots.  Shoots went back up into the woodchip stratum next, thereafter as you can see the tuber placement is considerably closer, with tuber size much more uniform (see previous photo, bottom string)
This may indicate a thicker, more clayey soil could make tuber production closer together on a string, with more uniform tuber size.  I'll be watching for this trait next year.

Note re: my observation 6 months ago about "white chunky roots" (anyone know how to make a post show what date exactly it was posted?)-  those appear to be the ones that *do* bear tubers.  

This coming Spring I may try wrapping a ball of our Houston black clay around a growing tip, to try to force the root to split like happened with 2183-Roux seed tuber #2 (see post right above this one.) Then, I'll dig up that section again, and if there is a split, I'll try cutting one of the new roots off and try to establish a new plant from it.

I saw a bean pod starting to split yesterday, and am wondering if Apios bean pods tend to shatter when drying, spraying out the beans onto the ground.  This would make it more difficult to collect the beans, whether for eating or growing out new varieties.  This one is either from 1972-Simon or 2155-Orson, the plants got too entangled for me to separate them this year.  I pulled off the bean pod and placed it on the kitchen counter, to dry out and to see if the pod opens further while drying.

2127-unnamed, Seed tuber #1
Total longest string length, seed tuber to the last new tuber: 1' 1" (one at bottom of photo)

2127-unnamed, Seed tuber #1
4 leafy stems (upper right side of tuber,) as opposed to 1 stem on 2183-Roux'

2127-unnamed, Seed tuber #1
The only shoot is from the tuber itself (see lower left of photo above, aka SSW in terms of compass)  

2127-unnamed, Seed tuber #1
One conjoined tuber

2127-unnamed, Seed tuber #2
Total longest string length, seed tuber to the last new tuber: 10 1/2" (one at top of photo)

2127-unnamed, Seed tuber #2
One shoot is from leafy stem, the other from tuber itself (has the conjoined tuber on it)- see photo above

2127-unnamed, Seed tuber #2
2 shoots from underground stem-  2 tubers attached to seed tuber?

Seedlings from mixed bag of Dr. Morales' forage varieties- two separate plants survived (I thought all of them had died 8/27).  Both about 2.5" long, a single plant stem, feeder roots only at the bottom of each of them.  One is significantly larger than the other – it will be interesting to see how each one performs this coming summer!

Tripple Creek/Scatterseed tubers (accession numbers unknown)- the results of the two on the left look similar, so they *might* be from the same "family," while the one on the left looks markedly different with the long tubers. Also, though, the seed tuber size decreases significantly from the left to the right.

Tripple Creek/Scatterseed Seed tuber #1
Total longest string length, seed tuber to the last new tuber: 17"

Tripple Creek/Scatterseed Seed tuber #1
Part of seed tuber eaten away, part still alive. Two leafy plant shoots; one stolon from upper part of larger shoot, two from below ground, all the rest from body of the tuber.

Tripple Creek/Scatterseed Seed tuber #1
Largest underground tubers came from the thickest stolon; very close spacing, and the upper tuber had a second conjoined tuber groing on a very short stolon out of it. All 3 tubers together weigh 8.65 oz.

Note re: my observation 6 months ago about "white chunky roots" (anyone know how to make a post show what date exactly it was posted?)-  those appear to be the ones that *do* bear tubers.  

Trish, just 'hover' on the time of the post and the date will appear...otherwise you need 'pie' to actually change so the date and time will show automatically all the time.

Thanks so much for your painstaking posts in this thread...it has me wanting to grow this plant.

Judith Browning wrote:
Trish, just 'hover' on the time of the post and the date will appear...otherwise you need 'pie' to actually change so the date and time will show automatically all the time.

Thanks Judith!  I can't get my tablet to do it, but I will definitely try it on my laptop.  I'm glad you're enjoying the thread- for some reason I was just really touched when I heard about all of the hard work by Dr. Blackmon in the '80s is to develop these better varieties, especially since it's a plant native to North America.  I hadn't found any accumulated info about the varieties online, except for some scientific articles, so I thought I would start this thread on permies.com. If you do ever have any questions about posts or where to look to get some yourself to try, just let me know-  :)

Tripple Creek/Scatterseed Seed tuber #2
From the direction of the stolons, I *think* this one grew a rudimentary tuber at the bottom, as well as one at the top.  Longest string length 17.5".

Tripple Creek/Scatterseed Seed tuber #2
The tubers are all fairly close together- the conjoined one has 4 tuber-lumps and the uppermost (left side) has a stolon growing out of it.

Tripple Creek/Scatterseed Seed tuber #3
Total longest string length, seed tuber to the last new tuber: +/- 22".  The stolons broke apart when I was pulling them up out of the straw bales. This was the smallest seed tuber of the lot, and produced three conjoined tubers, from a single stolon coming from the body of the seed tuber.

Tripple Creek/Scatterseed Seed tuber #3
The endmost tuber split into two mini-stolons, producing another three separate tubers

Monday, 1/22/2018 - I pulled 2155-Orson and 1972-Simon right before the first hard frost – I can't remember when that was.  I thought that I would post photos of them once the fall season was over, but it didn't happen, and I discovered yesterday that the tubers were starting to get soft! I took photos today, very abbreviated ones compared to the varieties previous, and I hope to replant these poor guys in the next week.  Live and learn...  

2155-Orson

1972-Simon

Note that compared to all of the other varieties, 2155 – Orson and 1972 – Simon had very few child tubers. Instead, they appear to have devoted all of their energy to growing a giant child tuber directly attached to the parent tuber, on one side of the plant.

Hi Trish et al,
New here and love this thread.  I've been growing foraged apios in S. Ontario (Z4 a-b) for a few years, and from the pictures I saw here they don't look much different from the improved varieties.  Many small tubers, a few large ones, etc.  I get plenty of flowers, and the occasional beans.  I suspect I have a mix of diploids and triploids, matching what I see in the wild (lots of flowers, variety of tuber sizes, few beans).  Almost all the wild ones I see grow on river banks, and loose tubers get carried by currents (hence lots of vegetative clonal dispersal).  A quick couple of questions:  are the improved varieties noticeably different, from your experience?  And would you be interested in tuber/seed exchange?  I typically get very few seeds (especially this year: bad drought), but lots of tubers.

G.

Anyone have updated information on where to find Improved Apios varieties? The only that i'm currently aware of being readily available is #2183 at Oikos Tree Crops.

I recently came across this below. The organization is set to continue trials with 43! accessions that were gifted to them by Dr. Blackmon. Amazingly, there is a good quality photo that shows specimens of all 43 tuber varieties clearly labeled. Wow.

https://theutopianseedproject.org/groundnut-planting/?unapproved=475&moderation-hash=8486799957eaa9bb7562c6165ac67c13#comment-475

https://i2.wp.com/theutopianseedproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/IMG_0508-e1555949464665.jpg?resize=1024%2C466&ssl=1

i’ve got some for sale at:
https://permies.com/t/154432/SALE-Apios-americana-Groundnut-select

i don’t have variety names, but regularly get decent sized first-year tubers from older mother tubers.
there’s also been discussion of growing techniques fairly recently here:
https://permies.com/t/154222/perennial-vegetables/groundnut-harvest

I am very confused. I bought 20 LSU improved stock hopniss ground nuts. They sprouted quickly and are vining now. However they do not look at all like pictures I’ve seen of hopniss. The leaves are large and thick, crisp if snapped. The blooms are now opening and they are yellow, cucumber like blooms instead of the ruddy red wisteria type blooms. Has anyone heard of this variety? Will it harvest just like regular groundnut? It did have the same nut and bead like string appearance.

pic is definitely of cukes, not groundnut…but these shouldn’t have grown out of tubers at all, so i doubt you got sent the wrong thing, just that some seed was spilled where you planted, or something. has nothing else come up there?

Sunny, I agree that the picture you posted is of a cucurbit.  I'm also growing an LSU improved variety.  First photo shows one that has crossed the fence and is climbing the bean trellis.   Other shows them at the top of my fence.   Tubers originally planted in 2016 and didn't do much the first few years.  I actually thought they'd died up until I unearthed some in late 2020.  I moved them closer to the fence and promptly forgot about them.  No blooms yet.