Yacon - The Kentish Connection

That gladiator's net is closing on the mystery of the yacon hybrids.  Frank van Keirsbilck told me that the unidentified pollen parent was a Smallanthus that came from seeds provided by Ulrike Paradine. These were from plants that have been growing happily for a number of years in her garden in Kent. I contacted her and she kindly gave me a few more pieces of information and some pictures of her plants. Cop a look at these:



Image courtesy of Ulrike Paradine



Image courtesy of Ulrike Paradine

















There's no mistaking the similarity of these images to the yacon hybrids. She collected the seeds (OK, you pedants, cypselae) herself in Costa Rica.  I did a bit of intensive interwebbing and my trident speared three possible candidates for this unfolding paternity suit:

S. latisquamus

S. maculatus

S. riparius

All three species are found in Costa Rica. So far, so good. Of the three, S. riparius is found from Central America to Northern Bolivia and is considered to be similar to and maybe able to hybridise with, S. sigesbeckius, one of yacon's putative ancestors.  So, as far as I'm concerned, it's a possible thumbs up for S. riparius as our mystery species. Or, as toga party afficionados will never cease to explain, that should actually be a thumbs down.  If anyone out there with first hand knowledge of the genus Smallanthus would like to chip in, please do.  I could be wrong.  I usually am. 

More interesting information from Ulrike: the plants regularly set seeds in Kent and not only that, she has had self-sown seedlings appearing from time to time. Her plants have often overwintered outside in her garden. They don't have the big storage roots of yacon, unfortunately. Despite this, these strike me as exactly the kind of robust, sturdy, adaptable traits we need to incorporate into the Radix yacon breeding programme.  You didn't know there was a yacon breeding programme at Radix?  There is now.