We spent a few hours collecting oca (Oxalis tuberosa) cuttings with maturing pods today – about 250 in total. That should translate into a lot of seed. With more than 4000 seeds as of today, it is tempting to get lazy and let these open pollinated pods go, but there is no guarantee that we’ll […]
We’re up to 23 oca (Oxalis tuberosa) seedlings from my early August sowing of 60 seeds. The earliest are now putting out true leaves and starting to look like proper oca plants. As is usually the case with seedlings, growth has picked up considerably since they formed true leaves. We’re a month away from the […]
On August 7th, I started a quick and dirty experiment to see if any of my oca (Oxalis tuberosa) seeds would germinate. Most seeds have some dormancy and won’t grow until time has passed or specific conditions of temperature and humidity are reached. I separated 60 seeds into three groups of 20. I soaked each […]
Six to eight inch cuttings are just right I wrote a couple weeks ago that I was going to try a few experiments to determine how to harvest the most oca (Oxalis tuberosa) seeds with the lowest losses (the two kind of go hand in hand). The verdict is in: indoor cuttings have provided significantly […]
Today, my oca (Oxalis tuberosa) seed count stands at 1,022 for the year, which means that I have achieved my goal, with three or possibly four months left before the first frost. I have 123 pods maturing on cuttings indoors, which should yield about 900 more seeds by the averages and more than that bagged […]
I’ve had pretty good luck this year getting oca (Oxalis tuberosa) to flower and set seed. I’m growing enough plants to start to perceive some patterns regarding flowering. This information may be helpful to prospective oca breeders, but could also be misleading, based on such a limited period of time. Climate I have not grown […]
I use the descriptors established by the International Institute of Phytogenetic Resources for the oca (Oxalis tuberosa) profiles on this site. They define three flower forms: round, starlike, and pentagonal. Here is what each of them looks like: Round is defined as 75% or greater overlap of the petals. Round oca flower Starlike is defined […]
The stats for my first post of potato flower pictures showed a lot of people doing web searches for potato flowers. So, by indirect but popular demand, I bring you part two. There are also some general updates about our potato season toward the bottom. Black Irish potato flowers Azul Toro potato flowers Maris Piper […]
Ten freshly minted oca (Oxalis tuberosa) seeds awaited me this morning, the results of cross OC13-S10x04-05, Hopin x Unknown Orange. Although I’m sure this will soon lose its thrill, it was nearly as exciting as the first few seeds that I collected. Ten seeds seems like a pretty respectable yield, although, according to my research, […]
When my oca (Oxalis tuberosa) began to flower, I set out to learn as much as possible about crossing, since I was aware that oca has a rather complicated tristylous incompatibility system. In brief, that means that it has three types of flowers, each bearing two types of stamens, each one of which corresponds to […]