a rhubarb harvest technique to get more rhubarb per year

Paul shares his rhubarb harvesting technique:

Harvesting all of the leaves that are shaded by another leaf. That is really aggressive harvesting. But ya'll are constantly making more rhubarb candy in the solar dehydrators at the lab. So the results speak for themselves.

Jeremy VanGelder wrote:... But ya'll are constantly making more rhubarb candy in the solar dehydrators at the lab...

Do they soak the rhubarb before drying it? I understand that the oxalic acid is water soluble and was wondering if soaking chopped stems would reduce its level?

I also realize that some people are more sensitive to oxalic acid than others, and that I'm one of those more sensitive people - love the flavor, but not the side effects!

For many years we had sheep and they enjoyed being fed apple tree prunings to browse upon. But the last several years we have been sheepless and wondered what to do with the prunings, and I thought why not give the native, fenced-out rabbits a treat in late winter. So we threw the prunings onto the rhubarb patch that was outside of the fenced gardens and orchards, where the bunnies ate off most all of the bark and buds, all the while pooping onto the rhubarb plants. So for many years now we have had the biggest rhubarb ever with the biggest stalks approaching baseball bat size, leaves like umbrellas (they made good mulch around the plants when cut off during harvest). The only thing we have to do is remove the branches when the patch starts to come up in the spring.  Since we don't eat that much rhubarb because of the oxalic acid, this spring we dug out half of the plants and gave them to a neighbor for her CSA.  BTW rhubarb roots also make a fantastic dye for wool and other animal fibers.

I can only speak for the Boots at Wheaton Labs, and what we have in our pantry.

We rinse and clean off the rhubarb before drying, but I don't think we do much in the way of soaking. Same would go if we were to make jam or pie or something like that.

We might want to dunk and swirl it in some simple syrup for a minute or two to attain a sweeter candy from the dehydrator, but in general, for us there is no long-term soaking involved.