It’s a root. It’s a tuber. It’s Super Sunflower.

One of the great joys of growing plants is when you find a unique plant with value in what would be considered impossible odds from a sea of uniformity. For the sunchoke, the value would be determined in a wavering ands undefined application as a potential food source used in novel ways. This is the case of the Jerusalem artichoke, Helianthus tuberosus. For many years I attempted to collect seeds from the variety Stampede with the attempt to create new selections. At the time there were only three varieties in the gardening industry. Stampede was one such variety from New York available from Johnny’s Seeds in Maine. The result of my seed harvest produced a lot of blanks rarely creating fertile seeds. The first time I produced ten plants from a half a grocery bag full of seed heads. As time went on, I added many other selections from all over the world. The sunchoke had made great strides in many countries searching for potato substitutes, flour and fermented products. There were hundreds of varieties all of which were originally selected from seedlings that people have discovered since the 1700’s. The result of me growing thirty varieties in one teeny 50 by 50 spot all within bee and butterfly distance was that some selections produced almost full heads of seeds. What is even more interesting is that both the annual sunflower and the sunchoke can cross pollinate and create fertile seeds. In stark contrast, if you look at the online information you will notice that the proclamation of sterility is widespread and growing such a seedling is futile. In real world scenarios, the history of sunchoke says the complete opposite.  The artichoke has gone the distance before and it will do it again. It’s flexible.

Just before I closed my nursery and quit growing and selling sunchokes, I was fortunate to obtain seeds of this perennial and annual cross as well as other Russian seed strains some of which were hybrids with the sunflower, Helianthus annus. The USDA has a repository of seeds obtained from different Russian research projects from Leningrad. I noticed that the seedlings that I grew out were not the normal smooth tuber selections that people grow to eat. Many had long stringy tubers with massive root systems which quickly outgrew the pots I had them in. It was akin to a dense sod of sunflower roots. This was a Eureka moment for me. This discovery was not like everything else I was growing. I began the process of weighing the highest yielding selections and found one seedling that produced nearly ten times the weight of all the others. The roots were like white string beans in size with omnidirectional branching. After closing the nursery, the Russian sunchokes sat in one of polyhouses with no irrigation for two years.  A few squeaked through by existing on the air moisture in the house. Last year after removing the poly and the nearby polyhouses,  I began the process of setting up a more formal growing environment where they can thrive in the wide-open world minus the deer munching on them. Luckily the most productive plants were also the survivors.

What Value is This?

Now onto seed production. Using seeds for a tuber crop versus an easily degradable and bulky tuber makes seeds a preferred method in both annual and perennial systems. It can be combined with other seeds and used as seedlings of increasing complexity along with a means to generate new varieties in the process. A population can generate a greater range of plants which in turn can further expand the use of the plant and its adaptation to a wide range of environmental conditions. You can even create new selections of it specifically tailored to your soil and climate. A sunflower deserves no less. This is what the Russians saw within the plant the same way they developed black oil sunflowers. Today a few sunchoke genes are naturally found within some sunflower varieties. Everything is now highly bred but few have tread into the perennial sod sunflower breeding only because there is no need for it. The value of the sunflower overshadows everything else.

The value is to create a new perennial forage plant along with other more industrial uses. You end up creating a type of perennial sod sunflower that you cut once or twice a year as the plant regenerates from the roots. The density of the plant and its ability to compete with its intensive root system and healthy foliage create a possibility for use with other tree crops like honey locust. Now you have a two story agriculture meant for feeding animals and potentially a tuber harvest every now and then for inulin production.

 I accidentally found this type of root system several times before when I began growing and naming sunchoke seedling selections. I first grew them from seeds into peat pots in one of the polyhouses. The peat pots exploded with tubers. A few had very long and narrow roots like horizontal carrots. Some were quite delicious and juicy too. When I put them into large grow bags, it looked like  a root whirlpool. These same varieties also produced a lot of viable seeds.  I called them “Diversity”. The tuber flavor was more like eating a pine cone infused with a  card board texture. It was edible but not desirable. But a few were okay to chew on while I went about my digging for orders. The flower production was the highest of all sunchokes with very good seed set. They were early flowering almost a month ahead of the other selections. If you ever see yellow finches eating your seed heads you know you have successfully achieved fertile seeds. We had to bag them.  This type of selection was done due to the vigor of the root system and small tuber size which favored a rhizome root and fertile seeds combined. Think mint but with starchy sunflower roots. For some, this would be a huge gardening casualty. At my farm with deer hammering the foliage and prairie voles eating the tubers in winter the extensive root system is maintained but not eliminated. On a larger scale, this would be of minor incovenience. For ol Ken and his sunnychoke collection wedged in between the hybrid oaks and the barn, it is not the same.

The impossible odds have narrowed and eventually disappear.

I knew this guy that used to watch his garden grow. I worked at his home for a while before I farmed full time. He had a chair in the sun just past the white pine forest he planted. He would sit there and close his eyes facing the garden. What was he thinking?  Sometimes the chair was empty when I came to work in the morning. Without him there, it looked barren. The impulse sprinkler kept time as it made its semi-circular rounds. Other times, we would talk and laugh at random things while he sat in front of his garden. Once his wife asked me why Ted was laughing so much? I did not know. We would only talk. Then it would be quiet and he would close his eyes again. What was he thinking?

Enjoy, Kenneth Asmus