Caesar Smith

It seems I’ve been gone for far too long! I hope all is well with you all. Unfortunately, I’ve continued losing varieties during my forum absence. As it stands, I still have specimens from almost all of the yam species, and several bulbiferas [CV-1, Saipan Purple, Hawaii, Mae-sai Yellow, and some Asian types whose identity I’ve lost (I’ll probably recognize them once bulbils start forming)]. I’m not currently equipped to recover the ones I’ve lost, but at least I know where to recover most of them.

Last year was a dismally unproductive year, that’s what I get for growing in the same soil year after year without amendment. I’ve given them a shot of 20-20-20 with a hefty dose of granular fertilizer. I’ll top them off with compost soon, and periodically fertilize them further, to get a better yield this year. Only two people received bulbils this past year, from how few I had (I misremembered it as one, previously).

Jason Tibbetts wrote:Caesar! I have been trying to do my own research on differentiating and sourcing Dioscoreas (particularly edible bulbiferas) ever since I read Toensmeiers book. Your info here is quite a goldmine. You said you have shipped to Arizona before. Have you gotten any feedback on how well they have done? I recently acquired a few ‘Hawaii’ bulbils that I was nervous I lost until they finally came up about a week ago. Arizona gets so hot in the summers that I am planning on providing them some afternoon shade. I know that I would be on a waiting list, but would love to test your CV types. Let me know when you have some available and when shipping gets back to nearly normal. I’ll see if I can come up with something to share.

Unfortunately, I’ve received very little feedback from most of the people I’ve sent bulbils to. Two in particular stand out, with one in Florida having issues with beetle damage, and another in Italy having somewhat underwhelming results (that was in the first year, I’m not sure if he had subsequent improvement).

PM me between December and February. Hopefully the fertilizer will have had a positive impact on the yield.

Lif Strand wrote:Now that pandemic restrictions are easing up, is there a way to trade for air potatoes?  And does the trade have to be plant related (I'd offer a book I wrote!)

Also, I'm reading up on air potatoes (sorry, should have done this sooner) and wonder if Dioscorea bulbifera is preferred in some culinary or cultivation way vs  Dioscorea alata (purple yam)/  I've got a yam sitting in water hoping for slips but it's a grocery store yam.  I'm just growing it for the foliage.

Plants preferred (depending on which ones), but I am an avid reader! I will be trading again during harvest season this year, December to February. PM me around then.

Regrettably, bulbil-bearers are quite under-used outside of permaculture contexts despite their excellent potential as a non-destructively harvested perennial starch crop (this is its main advantage, and one vine will give several bulbils per season). I will say this, bulbifera is generally not the best tasting of all the yams, but it’s nevertheless quite decent in flavor when consumed at its prime (consider this an actual endorsement, rather than condemnation by faint praise).

Thomas Black wrote:Caesar,

Hi, I hope all is well. I haven’t seen a post from you in a while. If you have any Dioscorea bulbs I’d like to trade with you again. Either way, get back up with me and let me know. Thanks, Thomas.

PM me around harvest time! All is well enough, I just tend to drop off from all the forums for extended periods when I get a spike in stress... it’s not a pretty picture, but I’m doing ok!

Thomas Black wrote:Hey Kurtis, I live just around the corner in Pensacola. Anyway, that would be Dioscorea bulbifera, the inedible wild type. Here in our area we have 2 escaped yams, D. alata and D. bulbifera. Alata bulbils are very mishappened looking but both they and the tubers are edible. Although there are edible D. bulbifera, the wild type the you find here are toxic. They are a very ornamental vine though.

That is a bulbifera, but here’s the neat part... apparently there’s many different strains of feral bulbiferas in and around Florida and several of them are edible. What makes them dangerous is that there’s no way to tell the difference between them and the toxic (and potentially lethal) ones at a glance. You’d have to have them tested for Diosgenin and Diosbulbin in a lab, if such a service were available. If you could do that, you could sort out the toxic ones and grow the edible ones. Also weird is that toxic strains sometimes beget edible strains from their botanical seeds. Clearly this is an effort best left to the experts, don’t taste this at home!

Jack Dakin wrote:Hello Ceasar,
I also live here in PR and I am interested in purchasing some air potatoes from you. Can you send me a PM?
I am looking to establish a forest garden as the rainy season kicks in, perhaps you have some other items as well.
Cheers.

Pm sent.

Stefania Giancane wrote:Hello, I would like to know how many bulbs you have of tefoe purple and Hawaii, because I am interested in buying.

PM sent.

Stefanus Bulbiferus wrote:hello, I would like to know if you have other varieties of dioscorea bulbifera, if so you can take pictures of the bulbs.

This is a sample of the varieties that bore bulbils this season. I won’t be able to offer all of them, as I will retain some for propagation, and the few that would remain would go to the first interested parties. If any of those varieties remain afterwards, I’ll alert the later interested parties so that they can purchase them.

Edit: I also have loads of Dark Night St. Vincent bulbils (D. alata).

I’m back, and have replied to all (hopefully... if I’ve missed anyone, message me).

The big producers this year were CV-1 and Saipan Purple. The other varieties fared poorly in pots (first-come-first-served for those others; I’ve kept track of the dates). This year I’ll try to get them straight into the ground. I’ll start shipping this next week.

Thanks for the recommendation Lorinne. I still haven't gotten one, so I'll look into it.

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D. esculentus is one of my thinner vines, but don't let that fool you, they're tougher than D. esculenta vines, not frail.

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My Saipan Purple has been churning out bulbils, so I figured now is a good time to taste them. To avoid poisoning myself – or confirm its toxicity (it is a semi-toxic variety) – I boiled it three times, changing the water between boils. I had intended on each time to be 30 minutes, but I ended up doing one 30 and two 20 minute boils by mistake. I was tempted to keep the skin, but I figured if the flesh was toxic, the skin would be more so.

I mashed it and seasoned it, ate half first, then the remainder a half hour later (long enough to give me time to adjust, but close enough where toxicity should've been apparent). The smell and flavor reminded me of Yams and Chayote and slightly of Camansi Nut (but much milder and more pleasant than the nut). My father likened the smell to that of ordinary yams.

It's been a day, and no symptoms developed. I figure it's a decent edible variety, provided it's properly cooked. I'm not sure I'd recommend bigger portion sizes (I just ate one bigger-than-apple-sized bulbil), but I have no qualms about eating it again. I wouldn't taste Tefoe Purple yet, though, since that one is almost entirely untested (I'd like to send a sample to a lab, if I knew of one).

Note: This took place after a heaping plate of rice, so I'm not sure if an empty stomach would've given different results.

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Further updates:

CV-2, sourced by the same person who gave me CV-1, is said to be superior, but I only have two bulbils at hand, so I'm not sure about tasting it yet. The vine has several more bulbils, but they're still small.

Nonthaburi Yellow died back to the ground. Worried about the possibility of it rotting, I dug up the tuber, washed it, trimmed it, dried it, and bagged it until planting time next season.

I need to think and work long and hard to find a good planting spot for next season. Bulbifera really doesn't seem to like pots... It struggles to produce, and often dies back without a crop. In the ground though, it's the strongest vine I have.

Now that I have some bulbils, I'm going through my list one-by-one, checking in with the interested parties, so if you get a moosage from me, it's probably that.

Apologies for my delay, I've some updates to give:

I haven't shipped anything yet. I never found the scale for weighing packages. I browsed the results of an amazon search, but couldn't find the right balance between accessibly priced, good reviews (less likely to malfunction or break), and good weight range (some have a lower or upper threshold beyond which they won't weigh the package). I'll keep searching, but for now I haven't contacted anyone on the list yet.

André Troylilas wrote:Nice, Caesar!
By the way, my bulbs are still sleeping...

That's a minor red flag, does this still hold true? A long dormancy for that variety is normal, my main concern is whether it'll start bearing bulbils in time to beat the winter cold (that won't be as much of an issue if they're well protected, I think).

Thomas Black wrote:Those purple bulbiferas are crazy. Are they more vigorous than the other bulbiferas? I ask because I’ve notice that my Ube’s are much more vigorous than my regular D. alata’s.

Saipan Purple is currently my largest, longest and strongest vine (despite being the last to sprout and having resprouted from a chicken attack early on) so there may be some truth to that. Tefoe Purple is my thinnest vine, but it came from a very tiny bulbil.

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Something to note for folks in cold climates... The Hawaiian varieties (maybe they're all one clone) are my most precocious producers by far. CV-1 doesn't usually form bulbils until October, and that's only the earliest ones (production starts in earnest around December). Meanwhile, both Steve's Hawaii and Jim's Hawaii started bearing just before summer, maybe around April or May. I no longer have Steve's Hawaii (I have to re-acquire it), but Jim's Hawaii currently has at least 3 bulbils, and one of them is looking to reach the 1lb mark. Early production seems like it might be a useful trait where cold winters are concerned. None of my other varieties (African or Asian) have bulbils yet.

The few off-vine stored bulbils I have are from my most delayed producer... Sena starts growing in late summer or early fall, and only starts producing bulbils deep into winter and spring the following year (I just harvested my last bulbil off the recently dried vine).

And finally, bulbil age may affect the vine's growth through the season. My eatliest Sena bulbil is already sprouting, but the rest of them are still quite dormant. It could be that the earliest sprouters are also the earliest to bear. This is something that deserves detailed study... Far beyond my current capacity, unfortunately.

No experience with it yet. I've been looking for it for a long time. I finally found two sources of it from South Africa:

* https://durandtsheirloomseeds.co.za/product/tsenza-african-potato/

* https://livingseeds.co.za/tsenza.html

The second source (Living Seeds) confirmed (on inquiry) that they ship overseas, and that I should watch the page for availability starting around August... Still nothing, but I'm checking often.

I've read that it's a tough and easy plant, though P.r. is easier, and that it's edible raw or cooked. Yellow flowers, long thin tubers.

I also found another Potato Mint, Plectranthus punctatus subsp. lanatus (allegedly different from the third Potato Mint, P. edulis), at Rare Palm Seeds, and placed an order. Still waiting.

* https://www.rarepalmseeds.com/plectranthus-punctatus-subsp-lanatus

I have a small backlog of people interested in the air potatoes. I had decided against shipping mainly because of the pandemic... It gets complicated for me. In the past, I'd always have to prepare the package, take it to the USPS, get a quote, bring it back home and communicate the price, only to go out again to ship it later. But I'm thinking it'd be simpler to cut out the middle steps...

There may be a scale somewhere around the house. I'll look for it, or buy a new one if it's not there. That way, I can weigh the packages at home and confirm the shipping cost by phone, saving me an unnecessary trip to the USPS. If I could do this, I'd be willing to ship again.

I have a few Sena bulbils in storage, and Jim's Hawaii is entering production much earlier than expected. I gotta go through my backlog first, but after that, I'll keep y'all posted if things go well.

Try to get 'em tested in a lab before tasting them, if you intend to eat them. Poisonous types are dangerous, and require grating, washing, steeping, drying and other repetitive steps to render them edible (and that might not even work for the worst types). But if you've found an edible type, you have quite the treasure on your hands.

I just collected the last of my "Sena" bulbils, and "Hawaii" is starting to produce, several months earlier than any other variety. This species keeps surprising me.

Keep posting the progress, I'm keen on seeing how yours does. Looks like it's starting off right!

Also... Nice mock strawberries. I hear they're very mild, but I wouldn't mind growing them myself.