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Can we decrease inulin (and flatulence) in sunchokes through cultivation practices?

 
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I was wondering what we can do to grow sunchokes that don't cause as much gas in those who eat them. So I spent some time reading. It's a little weird trying to research this because most the papers come from the point of wanting to -maximize- inulin production. So you have to read things backwards a little sometimes.

Genetics seems like it plays the greatest role, which isn't exactly cultivation -- but since we can choose what to grow, I'm including it. This paper and others show that different varieties produce higher or lower levels of inulin: https://www.isasunflower.org/fileadmin/documents/HELIA_issues/Helia000/Quantification_of_Inulin_Content_in_Selected_Accessions_of_Jerusalem_Artichoke.pdf

I was really wondering about feeding, watering, harvest window, companion plants, planting density -- the sort of things we can do as home or market gardeners to tweak the resulting produce.

This paper where they stored the tubers for five months at 5C, testing inulin over time shows that it drops slowly. It sort of sounds like it's not enough to both with, but it does corroborate the idea that if you leave them in the ground until after a few frosts have hit, they'll be less farty: https://cropj.com/sennoi_15_12_2021_1395_1398.pdf That maps well to our common wisdom about harvesting from late fall through early spring.

There's a paper that suggests different varieties alter inulin production in response to drought in different ways: https://journals.tubitak.gov.tr/agriculture/vol40/iss3/5/ So you could target genetics that more dramatically restrict inulin production as a result of drought when planning to grow them without irrigation. But I think it's also saying that yield suffers, so that's not as awesome.

The presence of phosphorus and potassium both seem to increase inulin production, so it might be that growing them on depleted soil decreases inulin production a little bit. https://www.academia.edu/59703045/Moderation_of_Inulin_and_Polyphenolics_Contents_in_Three_Cultivars_of_Helianthus_tuberosus_L_by_Potassium_Fertilization and https://www.ijat-aatsea.com/pdf/v17_n2_2021_March/Pinmongkhonkul,%20S.%20.pdf

Overall, it seems like our ability as gardeners to moderate the inulin production is pretty minimal, or at least no one has hit on it yet.

Does anyone know anything else about this? Anything these studies miss? Or experiences that you've had making sunchokes less farty in the garden?
 
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Did you see this study? It sounds a bit promising.

The geographical location of the places where JA was grown determined most of the chemical composition of the tubers. Significantly higher amounts of inulin, crude fiber, crude protein, endogenous amino acids, and magnesium were produced by the cultivars tested in Poland. On the other hand, tubers grown in Lithuania were characterized by a higher content of crude fat, true protein, total amino acids, essential amino acids, and nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, and sodium.



Otherwise, I was thinking that since inulin is a polysaccharide built mainly from fructose, it might be worthwhile to try and find (or select for) varieties with sweeter tubers. Sweet taste might mean that less of the fructose produced is bound up in inulin, and therefore less inulin produced.
 
Christopher Weeks
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Oh, thanks for the pointer -- that's great! It seems like they're attributing it to soil differences, but with 400km north-south difference, there's a lot of environment/light/temperature/etc differences that could be at work as well. I'd love it to be soil though, because then it's pretty likely we could modify things by tuning microbiota and polyculture.
 
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