2013 Oca True Seedling Selection

It was later than I intended, but several weeks ago I checked this year's seed-raised oca for early tuberisation. This is  the vital process of deselecting individuals which fail to meet the crucial criterium of earliness. It's tempting to wait and see their full potential, but a bit like shooting runt puppies, sooner is better than later. The difference here is that these puppies are nearly all runts, and the good one is a rare exception.

From my Spring sowing, I ultimately got about 25 seedlings. A couple managed to get deselected at an early stage by their own efforts, while the remainder were moved out of pots on to ground vacated by the onion crop in mid summer.

This artificially short growing period is enough to see that some individuals are clearly useless, and can be flung without any hesitation...

…while others ...

…show some promise, being of a similar size to the commercial clones that do best for me.

…So I've decided to retain tubers from four individuals, as having potential. Next year they will be grown conventionally from tubers to give them a fair chance of comparison against existing clones.

So the international search for a day-length neutral oca variety continues apace, with reports of Rhizowen at Radix, and Bill at Wetting the Beds routinely producing vast numbers of seedlings apparently with minimal effort. And Belgian Frank is no doubt quietly hatching a fresh horde for this year.