Growing Chinese yam (Dioscorea Batatas) HORIZONTALLY

Hi Everyone!

The problem with growing Chinese yam is that it grows deep roots vertically, and they break easily, so harvesting requires a lot of digging which I want to avoid.
I don't want to grow the roots in raised beds with closed off bottoms because I don't want to water the plants with very hard tap water, so I was thinking about digging a shallow pit and lining it with a fiberglass mesh (plastic is toxic) so that water can seep through, but the roots can't grow deep down into the ground.
I've attached some picture of the fiberglass mesh I plan to use.

What do you think, can the roots penetrate the holes of the fiberglass mesh and is this a good solution to my problem?

I found an interesting video of growing Chinese yam in tall wooden box. The soil needs to be watered daily to stay moist though. Maybe you can put a slanted box inside the raised bed to guide and confine the root. As for mesh material, I am worrying the root tip will grow through the hole and either the expanding root gets constricted or it just breaks the mesh to grow down.

I've seen a Chinese gardener grow it in plastic roof gutters placed on the ground, filled with soil but she had to water it. If it's possible I want to avoid watering.

These days fiberglass meshes are built into the base of the wall of cob houses to prevent mice from digging a hole through the wall. The yam root is said to be delicate, it breaks easily which intuitively tells me that possibly, it's not going to force it's way through the mesh, but I can't know for sure.

They sell a fiberglass fabric (image attached) used with synthetic resin for fiberglass shell construction in boat building for example. I haven't seen it in person, I've only seen pictures of it on a website that sells it. The fabric seems to be much less permiable by water which is a concern.

Have you heard about the technique of growing potatoes in a box?

Plant the yams in a cardboard box set on the ground.  When you are ready to harvest the yams the box is picked up and the yams fall out.

Of course this might not work if you want the yams to be perennial.

Of course I heard about this from someone growing potatoes instead of yams.  I see no reason it would not work with yams.

The garden is on a slope and above the future yam patch there is a small swale on contour into which rainwater is diverted from a ditch. I want to use this passive water source which is why I try to come up with a solution where the Yam is in the ground (+mulch) where it gets the plume of water coming from the swale, but at the smae time I want to somehow stop it from growing it's roots vertically downwards.

I was thinking about a clay container, but if I leave it in the ground frost will damage it over time.
Concrete contains aluminium oxide and aluminium is a toxic heavy metal so I don't want it to leach into the soil near the plants that I'll eat.

Some kind of non plastic, non toxic water permiable, frost resistant layer, fabric or mesh would be best that doesn'tt cost much ideally.

Here are two videos of growing Chinese yams. A trash can also used but the roots will circle at the bottom.

I would think that method will just end up with lots of roots going through the mesh and becoming impossible to get back out. The roots start the diameter of hair and expand outwards, so the mesh won't really stop the roots from going downwards, it will just constrict the growth in diameter once they get big enough, and you would probably end up with one root that is thick on both above and underneath the mesh.

Looks like this plant evolved with reasons to grow straight down, very  likely you can't make it change it's mind without an impermeable barrier, which would bring with it many more problems. I agree that temporary beds, bags, boxes etc. might be a more appropriate technology for this particular plant if you don't want to be digging these things out (I wouldn't want to either given these pictures - my back hurts just looking at them).

Ezra Beaton wrote:I would think that method will just end up with lots of roots going through the mesh and becoming impossible to get back out.

Would the roots go throuhg fiberglass fabrick as well?
The problem with the fabrick is less water permiability I think.

this reminded me of something i read aaaages ago, and lo and behold it still exists. It's for Diascorea japonica, but still.



from https://nihonmono.jp/en/article/29609/ (scroll down til you see that image, they explain more)

and
https://www.jinenjyou.or.jp/saibaihou01.html (original image source)

I was thinking since the garden is on a slope, I should bury a galvanized steel gutter in the ground, parallel to the surface of the ground so that the gutter is situated at an angle to the horizontal, this way, the root can still grow slightly downwards, and more to the side horizontally as well. The lower end of the gutter needs to be covered, and near that on the top as well to form a pocket, so that it catches the root and doesn't let it grow out of the gutter.

However, the method that you posted is better, because the roots get more water, since these corrugated sheets are not closed on the sides like a gutter.