My gut feeling is that quinoa is unusually sensitive to mineral balance in the soil during establishment. The dominant growing region is a high, arid plain where there is likely to be a high mineral content. Many chenopods specialise in growing under such conditions. When you move such strains of quinoa to ordinary, even quite fertile soil by usual standards it doesnt always readily adapt.
Throw in the issues with latitude/daylength cycle sensitivity and you have a crop that needs extra care to find the right strains for your conditions.
The difference in performance of huauzontle versus quinoa was dramatic for me for example. I also have wild C. album, but it only establishes well on beds that have a generous application of ash. I am hoping to develop it as a crop which grows in the residue from burning waste woody biomass since I have plenty of that in my system coupled with generally low/imbalanced mineral soils.
This is probably a good reason to create highly diverse mixed seed lots, sourced from different growers in different regions, to give everyone a chance of getting some genetics performing well without the need to handle dozens of pure strains.
Has anyone in the group found their conditions suit the majority of quinoa strains? They could be a useful resource to multiply up diversity to distribute to others. I see my main contribution to the group in offering a second generation per year, plus dedication to creating a large number of artificial hand crosses to share. Generally projects like this rely on getting a critical mass of core members with complementary resources and skills to contribute, so it might be worth figuring out how everyone wants to get involved. If the majority of people just want some diverse surplus seed to experiment with that is fine too.
My farm partner grew a mix of quinoa quite easily (ie planted and forgot about it), and all the Chenopodium grow really well for me/some turn into weeds-- epazote, amaranth, magenta spreen, orach etc. These are all the greens we eat recently. My soil is very sandy and low in minerals, I wonder if there’s a climate connection as well. @H.B do you think you had high humidity with warm temps when the seedlings did poorly?
I love these. The magenta is a powder that rubs off, and this year they’re even redder.
That is really promising. If we are going to be tapping into GRIN and starting with small packets of very valuable (and possibly a bit old/weak) seed then identifying the growers with the best chance of multiplying the seed and refreshing vigour will be important.
Makes me wonder if it might be better to delay tapping into GRIN seed until we are more certain of the group and its capabilities. Would a better initial phase be to gather as many commercially available quinoa varieties, mix them together, then distribute smaller amounts to everyone who is interested? That way we can compare results and get a sense of what everyone is working with in terms of resources? Would be a lower pressure way to all get a handle on the requirements of the crop.
My very limited experience with quinoa has been on the custom harvester side in Colorado. High altitude, dry, and the ground grew rocks along with everything else.
One possible suggestion
This commercial specialty seed supplier in the USA stocks a large range of quinoa varieties (I count 21 listed). They also have one type of huauzontle and Chenopodium giganteum.
https://www.wildgardenseed.com/index.php?cPath=50
Would anyone be interested in pooling some funds to buy the full range. Then someone in the USA could receive the order, blend the seed of all the varieties in to a highly diverse mix, then redistribute smaller packets to everyone who is contributed funds.
Seems to be $4 a packet, so if we went for the full range (23 packs) that would be $92US, plus postage costs depending on how many ways to split the order. I’d be willing to put in up to $35US to join in, so at least three other people would be needed to get the idea off the ground.
If there are better suppliers to consider I am open to suggestions. These sellers seem to be linked to OSSI so it might be nice to support them.
In the hope at some point it will be possible to ship across atlantic ocean, I am willing to contribute funds (like 20 euros of seeds+ postage) .
Since that describes much of our summers here it seems possible if not likely.
Let me add a couple more details as I recall them:
I was mostly/exclusively broadcasting the quinoa on bare soils in an experimental attempt to both cover bare ground and get food. I was using only grocery-store sourced quinoa, most seemingly quite vital but with no attention paid to country/conditions of origin.
I saw a similar situation play out several times with quinoa and amaranth (again grocery-sourced). I’d overseed a bare patch of ground by broadcast and get good germination with minimal seed predation, but the plants would never make it past seedlings.
One of the patches I was working on is actually in the dripline of an ailing dogwood. Prior to this year when I broadcast a seed mix and covered the patch with scrap conifer branches, nothing grew there.
Several of the spots I was trying to grow in were in driplines actually - - the lambsquarters volunteered and does fantastic under our silver maple, so I thought quinoa might do ok there too.
@Hugo mentioned elsewhere poor results with overseeding with lambsquarters. I don’t know if the results might have been different in different conditions.
This years seed (“actual” quinoa seed of known origin grown at sea level) seems to have a chance, though I am still not actually sowing anything and only broadcasting.
So pretty! I should probably get mine on the ground.
I think it’s an awesome idea! And I would also be down.
If you go for the ounces rather than the packet, it seems you might be able to get 40 times as much seed (20,000 per ounce vs 500 per packet) for slightly more than twice the price. But that’s just a thought. We could probably figure out details in another thread
Well spotted on the much cheaper bulk rate!
It might be worth contacting the sellers and letting them know who we are/our plans. They might be willing to create the blend and sell it at a bulk discount if it saves them from having to package everything up separately first. We could offer to share any superior genetics that come out of the project with them in the future.
Is there anyone in the US who is willing to spear head this idea? I would do it but being in Australia puts me at a practical disadvantage for postage. Also it might be worth dropping a post on the OSSI forums to see if anyone there wants to join in.
I remember reading accounts of commercial quinoa farmers saying that sometimes the crop refused to germinate, or germinated and just sat there, and they weren’t quite sure why it happened. Maybe a temperature/humidity issue if the soil is the same. I know I need to experiment with sowing at different times of year (best done with high diversity seed though). Worth mentioning that food grade quinoa seed is often pre-treated to remove saponins and may not be viable. Some dodgy seed sellers substitute dead food-grade seed into their packets for sowing as well.
Good idea! If I understand it right I think we’re talking about sourcing a diverse mix of quinoa seed that could still potentially be used for a 2023 planting in the southern hemisphere, hoping that some of the child and all the remainder seeds could then be incorporated into the 2024 mix Malcom is stewarding.
@MalcolmS Is this something you might have time or interest to look at?
@ShaneS and @H.B Yes, I can organize this; it is a great idea! I couldn’t contribute much money, since I’m really cash-strapped right now. But I can receive the order, mix them up, and send them out. And I have a couple of their varieties already, so those will be a few less we have to buy—I’ll check to see which ones I’ve got right now.
There’s a farm here in Colorado that grows an adapting quinoa mix commercially; I will see if I can also get seeds from them.
Chenopods in general grow well here in my dry climate with highly mineralized soils. Despite that, I’ve sometimes experienced unexplained quinoa failures; I think it is probably true that different strains have specific requirements. I agree with @ShaneS that it would make sense that they would appreciate a highly mineralized soil—and growing them after burning seems like a good idea.
Let’s discuss how GTS can support this. Not sure if this purchase would get mixed with donated seed from members, or be it’s own grex… either way, the seed program could cover the cost of the seed purchase and if you’re willing to do the packaging, we can distribute through the website. I’m also happy to make it available first to a select group of collaborators.
If non-us members are willing to accept the risk of packages being confiscated, I’m willing to ship abroad. I’m just learning about import/export of seeds with Australia in particular. For importing to the US, you’re required to obtain a phytosanitary certificate, though you may be able to get around that for “small lots.”
This would be great ! I am in france and willing to take the risk of confiscation.
@anna, this sounds great. Let’s figure out what we can do. If I set up the order, would we want to buy the packets or the ounces? The Ounces are roughly twice as much as the packets, but contain many times more seeds (20,000 vs 500). If we got the ounces, we could mix some of the seed together with seed that I am growing and other seed returned by other members and offer it through Going to Seed, as well as sharing it with this group. Once we get this hammered out, should I set up an order and then turn in a receipt for reimbursement from Going to Seed? I’d be happy to handle that, and both send them on to other collaborators as well as packaging the remaning seeds for the Going to Seed website and sending them on to you. (If we don’t buy seed, we’re not likely to have a very large or diverse offering this first year, as far as I can tell.)
Some of their quinoa offerings are mixes of other varieties they sell. They also have a “breeder’s mix” of other material they are trialing, which is unfortunately only available in packet size, but could end up being more valuable than all the other material put together. I’d probably keep that out separately and share it just with a few collaborators here to be grown out before mixing it into the larger pool.
Would we want the Huauzontle and the Chenopodium Giganteum, or does everyone have plenty of chenopod weeds available?
@ShaneS How soon would you have to get this for planting for this growing season? It would be ideal if you were able to return seeds from any successful plants in time for our 2024 growing season.
@ShaneS and @isabelle How would you suggest we go about shipping seeds to you so that they have the greatest chance of arrival?
As far as getting seeds back from international collaborators, it looks like a small lots of seed import permit would make things much easier and fully legal. Is this something Going to Seed would be interested in getting as an organization?
I am totally fine with the risk of confiscation. Happens from time to time. As long as the packets are labeled with the latin name (Chenopodium quinoa) they should be fine since it is on the list of species that don’t need a permit for import. If it has an official label on it (rather than just being hand written) that seems to help as well.
Getting support from GTS to get the project off the ground would be great, but I am still very happy to contribute financially as well. Getting ounces of seed then creating a highly diverse blend sounds like the way to go. @MalcolmS- are you happy to email the grower and see what they can do for us? Creating enough seed so that anyone can order the mix from the GTS website is a great idea.
The huauzontle is of particular interest to me, but I already have one strain so I can live without getting another. I can also get C. giganteum locally to try again (refused to grow last time, plus it is a diploid unlike quinoa and huauzontle so might not be worth bothering with to begin).
Timing of quinoa sowing in my subtropical conditions is an unknown at this stage. Depending on the amount of seed I start with I would be sowing every month (in the greenhouse or in the ground if I had enough seed spare) to filter out varieties from the mix that can handle different daylength cycles (and start getting a hang for hand crossing). Personally my aim is to emulate what I have heard from people in Peru that quinoa in the lowlands is sowed in the autumn, grows through the winter, then flowers in spring as the days get longer again.
But on the flipside I might be able to grow it through our spring/summer/autumn in the greenhouse so that it flowers at only a few inches tall, which makes hand crossing large numbers of varieties much more convenient in small pots. I will probably end up doing both, and I am happy to send seed back and forth to the USA to double their generations per year and provide a source of hand crossed diversity to drive the project forward. It might be worth getting some paperwork in order if that is the case to prevent precious hand crossed seed being confiscated on the way.
I have no idea of a specific way . My best guess would be to remain inconspicuous but no guarantee it will go through. let’s assume the same rule applies than for australia… Then "chenopodium quinoa " would be the appropriate designation of content.
I would be more than happy to send seeds back after harvest.
Is what some people call Magenta Spreen/Tree Spinach, maybe Red Aztec Spinach what you re talking about?
I have a ton of it. In fact some is sitting in bins unprocessed from last year, I started a germ test today. Now it’s growing as a weed around so I’ll be able to have fresh seed this year. Truly lovely striking magenta centers.
And I am curious if this can be used in the Huauzontle recipes, how similar is it?
Now I want to make this with the budding tops.
Huauzontle, a pre-Hispanic delicacy that you must try – The Yucatan Times
Yes, Magenta Spreen is Chenopodium giganteum, while Huauzontle/Aztec Spinach is Chenopodium nuttalliae. Magenta Spreen self-sows in my garden, and “giganteum” is certainly a good name for it. I find the greens to be very much like spinach, but I always find that the central stalks toughen up quickly, which makes harvesting more difficult, so we generally don’t get around to using it. Do you have this problem?
@ShaneS Your plan to try different sowing times sounds interesting! And hand crossing would be great, though as you point out the risk of such seeds being lost on a return trip could be problematic. If you’d like to contribute financially, that would be great—you should talk to @anna about that.
@isabelle OK, we can just give it a try and see what happens; I’d mark the packets appropriately, and if they don’t come through we can try something different.
I can contact Wild Garden Seeds and see if they can offer a discount for a bulk purchase, though the ounce prices are already pretty good. And I think I already have half an ounce of their Cherry Vanilla variety, so we wouldn’t need to buy that one.