2022-11-14T08:00:00Z
We just had the first “normal” type fall for the first time in my son’s almost six years. So it’s my first sunchoke seeds! I think they are Oikos or mostly Oikos genetics. At this rate it will take a very long time to make progress with Sunchokes in Ronan MT. Unless we get a string of nice falls. So this is maybe some progress. Some viable looking seed.
1 Like
Lauren R
How can you tell if the seeds are viable? I’ve harvested these before, but with no idea what I’m looking at, or even if I got any seeds. I may have stored just chaff. 
William S
You can use a razor blade and section the seeds and examine under a dissecting scope. Or you can just smash one between your fingernails (what I do). If they look and feel healthy and whole and dont squish super easily you usually have good seed. These look like little sunflower seeds as they are. So in my photo they are mixed with chaff: a mixture of old flowers, pappus, and bracts. They are the little black sunflower seeds. If they weren’t good they wouldn’t be so plump and uniformly black.
Emily S
Very nice! I’m glad to see what sunchoke seeds look like, since I’m planning to harvest them as soon as I get some (hopefully next year!).
Lauren R
Thanks. I’ll need to go back and look–I don’t think I ever got anything that looked like a sunflower seed.
Christopher W
My sunchokes haven’t produced any seed yet. This year, they hardly produced any blooms! It was a long cold spring and a short cool summer. They’re native to this area, so it seems like it must happen sometimes, but maybe only on especially perfect years or something.
William S
Yeah I am outside of their historic range. So I’ve been assuming my fall weather patterns are usually too harsh.
1 Like
Ohhhhh! This is so exciting! I was sniffing around for seed a couple years ago and couldn’t find any at all, it’s good to see folks working on them even if very slowly.
1 Like
Christopher sent me some recently (thank you!!), and I bought a pack of tubers from Joseph Lofthouse a few weeks ago. So if all goes well, I’ll have loads of seeds next year. Assuming they do produce lots of seed, and assuming I’m able to harvest those seeds before the birds eat them (wry laugh), I’ll plan on sharing my extra from the best plants in next year’s community grexes.
2 Likes
Sunroot breeding was one of the easiest projects I worked on. About 90% of the plants were culled each generation. The great plants were cloned.
Collecting seeds usually involved harvesting immediately after petal drop, or bagging at that time.
These days, I can collect seeds just by shaking the seed-heads into a bucket, even after the goldfinches have eaten their fill. I grow a row more than 100 feet long, so even if the birds eat most of the seed, there is still plenty for a breeding project.
4 Likes
That’s awesome! I like the idea of shaking the seed heads into a bucket. That sounds pretty easy.
I was thinking about planting beans in there with them, letting them multi-task by serving as a living trellis, but I read somewhere that sunflowers (including sunroots) can be a bit allelopathic. Hmm. But then I read the other day that sunflowers and sunroots were often used as a “fourth sister” in the three sisters gardening method by Native Americans, which implies they would work well that way. Hmmm.
I suppose the only way to find out is to try it!
Beans on sunflowers work well for me, especially runner beans.
Pre-soaking the beans, so that the radicals are just emerging when planted might bypass the allelopathy. I wonder if the allelopathy is more about the decaying/dead stalks than it is about the green growth.
Oh, I like the idea of pre-soaking to try to bypass it. That seems worth trying!
Growing peas on sunchokes worked for me.
Saves work building trelisses as an extra bonus.
1 Like
Nice! That’s another thing I’ve been thinking of trying.
I’ve had exceptionally poor germination pre-soaking (standard bush) beans for more than 12 hours; the 12-hour soaked beans will sprout ok, but 24 hours (before radicle emergence) seems to give me <50% germination. Is this a technique you’ve used with success? It worked for squash and corn for me, just not beans.
1 Like
Seems to me like long soaking drowns the seeds. I treat them like i was growing sprouts. Soak for an hour, drain, then rinse/drain 2-3 times per day until they sprout.
2 Likes
That makes sense, since you literally are making bean sprouts.
That makes sense. Will give it a try this year