Tuesday 30 March 2010

Oca Variety Roundup.

It had to be done! I've assembled a spectrum of Oca varieties from various sources, and am cataloging them here.  It's quite odd that there are no accepted named varieties of Oca in Europe or North America, or at least none that I know of. Feel free to correct me on that.
I'm cataloging them simply by background tuber colour, and eye colour. I will add any other characteristics or identifiers once I see the plants growing, along with any observations on their habit or productivity.

Pale creme, self-coloured eyes (aka 'White').


Pale creme, pink eyes (possible variation on right, pale creme, purple eyes)


Pale yellow/green, self-coloured eyes. The colour difference between this and 'pale creme' is not very obvious on-screen.


Pale gold, purple eyes.


Pale pink, purple eyes.


Rose, self-coloured eyes.


Pale red, white eyes. Source, a sport of Real Seeds 'Red'


Scarlet, white eyes (aka Real Seeds 'Red')


Dark scarlet, self-coloured eyes.


Orange-pink, purple eyes. Offspring of tubers bought in a UK supermarket eight years ago, so almost certainly a New Zealand commercial variety. Thanks to Catstripe for the tubers.




Ruby red, white eyes. Again, from tubers bought in a UK supermarket eight years ago, so almost certainly a New Zealand commercial variety. Again, from Catstripe.

Many of the varieties above are courtesy of tris0070 who provides Oca and other unusual tubers via eBay.

5 comments:

  1. Hello Ian,
    fine dokumentation from Oca varieties. I hope to see many varieties in science.

    Cordula

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  2. Hello Ian,
    Here in the maritime Northwest of North America we now have 5 named varieties: Amarillo, Hopin, Mexican Red, Rebo, & Grande.

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  3. Hi Stiubhard, It's interesting that, to my knowledge, the names do not appear over here.
    I'd be very interested to see photos of your varieties to see if they match any of mine.

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  4. Here's a link to the catalog pic of all 5 varieties from Peace Seeds:

    http://www.peaceseeds.cn/5-types-od-Oca-over-Mashua.jpg

    From the Amarillo(yellow), counterclockwise, you have Rebo, Hopin, & I'm not sure about the last 2 as I haven't seen or grown them firsthand yet...

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  5. Cheers Stiubhard. The Amarillo is new to me. Nice crop of Mashua there too.

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