Chufa Misadventure-AKA Nutsedge

Once upon a time I discovered the land of edible weeds. I read a lot. I devoured the Petersons guidebooks. My first information on chuffa stated that the tubers could be roasted, and brewed into a coffee like substance.

Imagine my delight when a few plants showed up in my garden. AWESOME! Free stuff! Right?

Well… yes and no. I have clay dirt. It is slooowly becoming clay soil. (Thanks Redhawk) Those tubers hide very well in clay. Or maybe not even develop? But the chufa appears to be a heavy feeder, as my desired crops do poorly in chufa territory. Fast forward 7 years, and this chufa has invaded roughly 25X40 foot area.

Did you know that chufa spreads by seed? Chufa spreads by teeny tiny thread like rhizomes? Chufa spreads by tubers? Chufa spreads in my nightmares? It DOES make a nice mulch. In areas not already infested by...CHUFA! And do not let that chufa form seeds, and forget to harvest 'em for food. Ahem.

Now that part of my garden is in wood chips, I have discovered… drum roll…TUBERS!!  Did I mention that I don’t like coffee? WHY did I get excited over a substitute for coffee???

Today, I discovered a new to me Green Deanne article on chufa! Sooo… Lunch! For 4 YEARS!!! AAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!! http://www.eattheweeds.com/cyperus-esculentus-rotundus-for-lunch-2/

So, I now know to not allow edibles of little use to me, to invade my garden. I hope this rant is of use to you.

Oh, yeah. A question for the Wise Permies. What is next in the order of succession plant? What can I grow, to crowd out chufa?

Chuffa is a favorite food of wild turkeys. Plenty of turkeys in the mountains & woodlands of east TN. Perhaps you could catch & release some wild ones in your part of the state??? I'd check with a game warden or the fish & wildlife department first. I recently moved from a place that was a rescued & rehabilitated wild turkey release area in the '60s. Over 50 years later we still had large flocks of turkeys around our house almost daily. Have a few turkeys roaming around the new place but want more. Many more. Intend to plant chuffa. Not in the gardens but out in the woods for the birds.

Try growing chickory for coffee. No wait, that's how your nightmare started.  

Chickory. Ha!

While they don't frequent my backyard, wild turkeys are hereabouts. We ocaisionaly pass them as they run along the roadside.

Coffee subsitute? Why not Horchata?
True chuffa (rather than  nutsedge) is probably not going to survive in my zone, but I'm going to try it in a container.
I would think it would br an ideal plant for pastures pigs or geese.

I'm a bit confused here... Chufa is a superfood.  You have to look up many of the recipes by the name of "tiger nut".  These are also a very good catfish bait, again search youtube for tiger nut catifsh bait.  You can even make a milk like almond milk out of chufa.  I hope that your abundance doesn't go to waste

Sounds to me like you have two options:

1, Embrace chuffa whole-heartedly for its milk, oil (produces more per acre than palm oil), and rabbit forage, or

2, sheet mulch the whole place until it's dead.

Maybe there's a third option: grow several successions of very tall, dense grasses, like rye and sorgum, without tilling in between. They will at once crowd it out and shade it out. If you do it repeatedly, you will create loads of mulch to improve your soil at the same time.

-Nathanael

William:
A food that takes more energy to harvest, than it gives, is not going to be harvested in my world. I grow food (some of which ARE weeds) that we like to eat. As I weed the wood chipped areas, the chufa shall be consumed. But the clay areas, must be sifted out like an archeology site. Clay does not like to sift! Unless you till the crap out of it. Tilling is something I'd like to get away from.

Chufa will never be gone from my place. I just want it gone from my garden!

Totally get that! The very reason I don't harvest lamb quarters.

That makes total sense.  Somehow I didn't pick that up from your initial post.  Here's a question, many vegetables like radishes are used to break up the soil and left in the ground to rot.  This won't happen to Chuffa, because it will continue to spread?

Nathanael Szobody wrote:
Maybe there's a third option: grow several successions of very tall, dense grasses, like rye and sorgum, without tilling in between. They will at once crowd it out and shade it out. If you do it repeatedly, you will create loads of mulch to improve your soil at the same time.

-Nathanael

I like this. Would you grow these together, or in succession? Now is not the time though. Maybe start this winter. I'll try to do turnips and kale and mustards. These have tended toward winter kill the last few years though. Our ground has been freezing for a couple weeks at a time, instead of the former scattered days of freeze. I haven't tried covering them with tarps yet.


What tends to sprout with a brasciea nurse crop, for spring emergence?  Maybe crimson clover? It stays low until the spring warms up. It appears to still be winter hardy. Thinking as I type...

How about, brasciea, under seeded with clover, then in spring, poke sorgum, and whatever through the still growing clover to sprout as clover dies in May?

Any additional ideas?
 

William Bronson wrote: Totally get that! The very reason I don't harvest lamb quarters.

Now that's funny! We do eat lambsquarters in salads! Not the seeds though.

Joylynn Hardesty wrote:
How about, brasciea, under seeded with clover, then in spring, poke sorgum, and whatever through the still growing clover to sprout as clover dies in May?

Any additional ideas?
 

Might work. But the point with the tall grasses is to completely close out the soil and the sun,  so a dense mono-crop was what I had in mind.

Hmmm. I'm tired and maybe slow to convey my theory.

Thick thick seeding of brasciea in September so it will get large enough to maybe survive the winter. (local timing) More than one type for variety in our diet. Soon after sprouting, two weeks? Reseed with crimson clover. This will sprout under the leaves of the turnips etc., (I hope) and stay low until about last frost. Soon after last frost, the brasciea go to seed. Meanwhile, clover is getting taller, and goes to seed before it gets really hot, also smothering brasciea to decompose.

Okay that succession, in my theory will keep the ground covered until after the time chuffa sprouts. Without any rush to get it covered in the spring, when so much other stuff is needed, and this would get put off until tomorrow ... tomorrow....


Then as clover starts to fade, try my hand at uhhh... crimping? And plant something through the clover. Something that will shade the ground completely. For me, I'm not sold on the idea of sorghum in my garden. It doesn't do great for me. Something to do with it's cousin corn passionately hating my guts.

Oooh! maybe cowpeas! They can be seeded fairly dense.

I'm not opposed to a grassy plant, I welcome any suggestions. The corn genus just doesn't like me.

Oh, and the clover I mean grows very thick and to about.2 1/2 feet tall locally. Maybe what I meant was red clover?

Gotcha Joylynn sorry, I'm the slow one. That should work fine as long as you have a way of sowing a grass very thickly in the existing clover. You could probably just broadcast it before you crimp the clover.

Corn and sorghum originate from two different continents,  and sorghum is much less demanding on the soil and water.

Cowpea would not outcompete chuffa, because it would not close out the soil surface with its roots. It will shade the soil,  but the chuffa will just grow longer to poke its head out the top of the foliage. Remember, chuffa is a grass,  and legumes and grasses are COMPLEMENTARY. you need another grass to out-compete a grass. The same goes for clover;  I think the chuffa will do just fine amongst clover until a tall and dense grass closes it out.

However, try rye. It can be shown broadcast in the fall, covered with straw, and it will pop up in the spring.  If you sow rye densely, it will grow tall and thickly. Then right before it produces seed, just crimp the whole thing flat with a long 4x4.

I have not done this myself, but I have seen it described with photos. Right before you trample it, broadcast another layer of grass. The mulch created by all the rye layed flay should keep the seed moist enough to sprout. If not, just keep it watered. This will give you two successions of grass in one season.

Not to be a pessimist, but I think you would have to do this two years in a row. Because a chuffa has its tuber that it can draw energy from for a long time even without access to sunshine and nutrients. You have to maintain your siege until its supplies run out

You could do your brasciea-clover succession, followed with sorghum for season 1, see how that does and follow it up with fall planted rye and summer sorghum or rye again. At very least your going to end up with some very organic soil!

I still don't know whether you are talking about the real chufa of the weedy one. Chufa (the real one) is still on my want list. But if it's that weedy?

Well It looks to me like the chufa, yellow nutsedge pictured in the article from Eat The Weeds from the first post. But I didn't buy it pre-labeled. It appeared all by itself. I'm assuming that the article is about "real chufa". Common names can be confusing.

In my climate, this plant has its' above ground parts killed by frost.

Joylynn Hardesty wrote:Well It looks to me like the chufa, yellow nutsedge pictured in the article from Eat the Weeds from the first post. But I didn't buy it pre-labeled. It appeared all by itself. I'm assuming that the article is about "real chufa". Common names can be confusing.

In my climate, this plant has its' above ground parts killed by frost.

So have you tasted it?

The seeds and underground nuts taste "nutty". I can't get any more specific than that. Not bad, not awesome, to my taste buds.

Joylynn Hardesty wrote:The seeds and underground nuts taste "nutty". I can't get any more specific than that. Not bad, not awesome, to my taste buds.

The ones I grow remind me of coconut...

William Wallace wrote:Here's a question, many vegetables like radishes are used to break up the soil and left in the ground to rot.  This won't happen to Chufa, because it will continue to spread?

Sorry, I managed to skip over your question. In my climate, chufa dies back ONLY above ground. So this year's tubers re sprout next spring. In the past, turnips (probably radishes too) would also overwinter. Recent winters, our freezing temperatures are lasting longer, as in days rather than hours. Maybe in a few more years, chufa won't overwinter.  

With further observation, I have an adjusted plan.

In the area where I have a lot of shade, chufa has become weak. YAY! This includes shade from a Mulberry tree with cowpeas also in this shade. Elsewhere, from low growing plants, such as sweet potato.

I’ve got a variety of turnips, mustard and kale there now. I have decided to add a mix of mostly winter rye, and hairy vetch, and some chicory. No. The chicory is NOT for coffee. I like to eat the greens. I love to see the flowers.

I’m thinking to under seed with a few cowpeas, hoping for minuscule nitrogen fixing. I’ll crimp the winter rye, and hairy vetch in late spring, and inserting a bunch of sweet potatoes. I’m not purchasing the barnyard grass variety I had considered before, just trusting in nature and my harvested local seeds Maybe I’ll try some other transplants where the chufa is less of a problem.

The super local authority (yon Hunny) will require whatever grass is there to be under 9 ish inches tall. So mowing will be happening.

What do you think?

Life got in my way, again. Fall sowing of turnips was not successful. Too much Chufa!

We just finished covering the affected areas of my garden with a variety of tarps and black plastic for solarization. The fight continues...

I left the tarps on all summer long. Some folks are concerned with killing the soil life, being under the tarps for so long. In my case, there were still creepy crawlers living under the tarp come early October. This was probably due to the thick layer of woodchips that were there. For those who think the soil in your location will die, the damage can be repaired. Take a look through the List of Dr. RedHawk's Epic Soil Series Threads here. For a quick start while you read through all that, give the soil some compost or weed teas to start the repair.

Pictures to follow soon.

Funny, today i was looking at my sprouting tigernuts and thinking about where i am going to put them so they can start growing better than last year. In a pot i guess after reading this thread/ threat.
They grew, but apparently they need a lot of water, it was a very dry summer where i am last year. Maybe that could help you a bit in your eradication mission Jocelynn!
Or how about getting the sheet of, dumping a load of woodchips on it and put the tarp back on for a year. Maybe add some winecap mushrooms mycelium to keep the soil life busy Then in winter plant it full of willow (basket) cuttings to shade it out completely next season.

Guess Im a little late here but....
I believe tiger nut Corms or whatever can survive in soil up to 15 years,.

Hmmm. 15 years, that is not good news.

Over summer 2019 the Chufa sprouted under the tarp. Portions of the infestation lifted the tarp 6 inches off the surface of the soil. However, these areas eventually gave up the ghost.

Here you can see a few weak blanched tendrils survived.


As I removed the tarps teeny critters would skitter away to hide. Spiders, pill bugs, etcetera. This leads me to hope microbes also survived the solarization. Note the remaining organic matter available.

I immediately sowed a cover crop of Turnips, Crimson Clover, Hairy Vetch, Winter Rye, and Austrian Winter Peas. I was enamored of dry farming and didn't water it. The rains were 3 weeks late. Turnips sprouted but stayed an inch tall and most expired. Maybe they are more susceptible to the allelopathy. In the spring, a smattering of turnips grew to 3 inches tall and bolted. Sigh. The other seeds sprouted eventually. Rye stayed put, but the other stuff took every opportunity to roll down the slope to the bottom.

Reminder to self, Labor day is the latest to seed cole crops if I want a harvest over winter!

Everything stayed very short over winter. Under 3 inches tall. I could see that the peas were getting munched on. I was afraid they'd be eaten all gone. Many survived. The cover crop ranged from 2 feet to 4 feet in height, the taller were in the formerly woodchipped area. Everything down there was thick and lush as would be expected. Uphill grew much weaker plants. It was weird, knowing the area is sloped, but looking at the tops of the plants the area looked flat.



Everything has been knocked down. It was a gradual process. Bunnies? Raccoons? Armadillos? Rouge Muscovy (It's not ours!) who I spied sitting by the pond? Currently only the vetch appears to be flowering.

I do have pictures of the past year's Chufa Drama. Here's a partial update:

Here is the fall sown cover crop. It took forever for anything to be of size...


After spring finally sprung 2020:



Once everything had gone to seed, I mowed it down and tried out a garden. The tomatoes were stunted. I knocked everything down and tarped it all over again through the winter of 2021.

For the uninitiated. This is a close-up of a baby Chufa plant. That blurry thing is my gloved finger- ring size 9. The war continues... This year (2021) with vegetables again. Pole beans and squash, so far...

My pole beans are looking for something to climb! Behold, a trellis!

The next bed has a row of tomatoes. We transplanted them in and put a layer of compost down. On top of that, I put down cardboard to further smother the potential Chufa. Then a layer of straw.

Ooops. Backing up just a little, my bean bed was a touch too wet for my liking. So The Kid hauled a bunch of clay from the new pond. The bed is about 4 feet wide, 22 feet long, and about 4 inches above grade. Now the beans won't drown! We planted them and promptly buried the seedbed under 3 inches of oak leaves that are about 1 inch by 3 inches. The beans just pop their heads up thru these leaves! Love that! No weeding at all! These leaves work this way for peas too.

The green in the picture is just leaves on smallish branches that I tossed down to decompose.

Here is one patch of surviving Chufa in this bed. There are more patches. But at least it isn't solid Chufa for the whole area as it was before. Whew! I think progress has been made!

The upper part of this area was thickly planted in Rye this past fall. I let it form seeds hoping it would reseed itself.

It was just past flowering when a big thunderstorm blew through. We trampled the small bits still standing down, thinking this was 'crimping'. Apparently, the stalks need to be cut as well. The stalks remained green, a few stalks made an effort to curl back up. I seeded the area with Cowpeas and Turnips. The thickness of the Rye straw/still living plants prevented their sprouting. Guess who did sprout through the thick mulch... Chufa!

We raked off the rye straw, and tilled it. It rained the next day, too wet to work it. It sat for a week and sprouted a... Chufa Forrest. Sigh. We tilled it again and it had such a beautiful tilth that I decided to screen the soil through 1/4 inch hardware cloth, to do away with some Chufa. This was very tedious and time-consuming. An area of 4X10 was completed with the following results. Not much volume of Chufa. Huh.





I am sooo tired of dealing with this stuff. It is time to reduce the area of the chufa problem. We created raised beds, and heavily mulched the paths. This area can be too wet to plant in the early spring, so we dug out paths to drain the beds, then leveled the beds. The very top area is two beds plus an undug path. This area is almost flat, and at the top of the slope. The driest area. I don't want to create the need to water the whole place after the spring thunderstorms are gone.



The finished beds were seeded with a deer plot mix, mostly of Winter peas, Rye, and Radish. A sprinkling of rye straw was placed over the beds to discourage birds... but with the experience of too thick straw to sprout the summer cover crop, I decided to cover maybe 25% of the area instead of the recommended 50%. For the record, the not-crimped rye covered the soil by about 95%. Way too thick for my summer cover crop.

The forecasted rain did not fall that night, so I watered the beds for the establishment of the cover crop.

LOL, Joylynn!!  Forget trying to crowd it out or kill it; just import some eaters.  Anything that likes to dig things up and eat them: a pig will completely plow up the entire area and leave not a tuber behind...and when it rains there goes your topsoil...

How about adopting some armadilloes?  XD

Last winter's cover crop failed. But God gave me chickweed and henbit to fill in for the old failed seeds.

There is less chufa than there used to be. Smothering it seems to be working. So I'll keep putting down cardboard and planting through it. And pull anything that pops up in the paths!!!

I gotta say, I LOVE the flavor of the chufa my partner bought, and she loves it too, my mom loved it, my mom's neighbor loved it.  Maybe if it's this much work to combat it, you might as well do the amount of work to harvest it, and then plant into the now-tilled soil before all the nitrogen flies away.  If it tastes amazing to other people you could sell it or barter.  It might require roasting to bring out the flavor, that's how it was sold.  

Maybe a different cultivar of nutsedge would taste better.

I was just going to post on permies about how it could be another gateway drug to permaculture, since everyone was raving about the flavor.

It's sold as a flour, and it says it's good for baking and can even substitute for gluten.  

Hi Joylynn, I stumbled accross this thread which gave me a sympathetic smile. No nutsedge here - too cool, but plenty of other weedy grasses. I suspect that the raised beds may really help. I beleive the nutsedge alongh with chufa like it damp, so making a more well drained area might give you an edge.
How is the battle going now?
What other solutions might nutsedge be the problem for?