Addi Anchote

Anybody growing this root that's native to Ethiopia? I was browsing expiremental farm network and picked up some seeds that are now germinating.

https://store.experimentalfarmnetwork.org/products/addi-anchote-white-hanchotte

Ooh - that looks exciting!

The young shoots and leaves can also be eaten, and are high in protein, though apparently not all communities bother with them as food for humans. The entire plant, including the root, is frequently fed to animals.

source

Please let us know how you get on with it Russell.

I'm going to use this space to document the process of growing anchote from seed to harvest. Hope this is useful to anyone else who chooses to grow it!

The seeds look almost like a thick flat cucumber seed ( which kind of makes sense since it's in the Cucurbitaceae family). I filed down a tiny part of the shell since they are so hard and soaked them for 24 hours in warm water before planting them about .5 inch in a mix of sand, perilite and coco coir. The shell was not very thick so i just lightly sanded it down.

Its been a little over 2 weeks and the seeds are just starting to pop up now. I am going to keep them under grow lights until around the end of May in a space thats pretty cool, no idea where I am going to plant them outside yet though.

Of all the seedlings 2 have survived and are putting out true leaves now. I was away and I think the person looking after them may have over watered them. Good to note that the seedlings don't love very wet soil. I'm about 3 weeks from hardening them off and in the ground.

Starting to harden the seedlings off to go outside. They are getting bigger and starting to develop tendrils!

How did this go?

It's still growing and climbing over my trellis now! I don't think its going to produce any fruit but im hoping when I clear away the mass of delicatas that its intertwined with that there's a decent root to harvest. So it seems that vermont summers are way too short to produce fruit as we are due for our first frost in about a month.

The fruit seems to be (at least) unpalatable, but it would have been nice to have been able to save seed. Do you think it is a shorter daylength thing? Some plants from the tropics flower when the days get shorter....

It might be like chayote (choko) and require shorter day lengths to trigger flowering. I just picked another dozen chokos off the ground here and winter is nearly over. They only started dropping in June and they were flowering like mad in April and May.

Nancy Reading wrote:The fruit seems to be (at least) unpalatable, but it would have been nice to have been able to save seed. Do you think it is a shorter daylength thing? Some plants from the tropics flower when the days get shorter....

Yes, my hope was to collect seed and start selecting for earlier and earlier blooms. I've read the fruits need a long window for ripening though. I haven't come across anything about the flowering being daylight dependant, but that could be possible as well!

I do have a small hope that I can overwinter some smaller roots in storage and plant them back out in the spring to get a head start next year (and maybe get it to start fruiting earlier).

It's growing mixed in with a giant delicata plant, so im going to have to wait a few more weeks to pull everything back and see what the root harvest looks like.

It's fruiting! Super cool little cucumber like fruits..im doubtful they will mature enough to save seed but if we get lucky and frosts hold off till later this year they might make it across the finish line.

I was just reading some interesting info on the fruits. If they get large enough they can be picked green and finish ripening on the counter. So I think I will get some viable seed for next year.

Apparently there are high concentrations of saponins in the fruits which give them a bitter taste. But those same saponins have been used traditionally to make a soap that is anti bacterial and microbial. Straining and saving the juice after extracting the seeds seems to be the way its done so I am going to also give that a try.

I went ahead and picked some of the fruits to save seed since we are due for a frost any day. I think they will make it across the finish line ripening on the counter and I will harvest the roots sometime when the rest of the plant does back in the next week or two.

Russell Apotheker wrote:Anybody growing this root that's native to Ethiopia? I was browsing expiremental farm network and picked up some seeds that are now germinating.

https://store.experimentalfarmnetwork.org/products/addi-anchote-white-hanchotte

I hadnt heard of addi anchote before, so this is interesting. Itll be good to see how it handles a Vermont growing season, especially with the shorter summers. Have you found much information about how long it takes to develop a decent-sized root from seed? I'd be curious to hear how it does once the plants get established.