To those interested in sunroots aka Jerusalem artichokes aka sunchokes, please take note. I am growing the variety ‘Supernova’ from Oikos Tree Crops. In my opinion the flavor is very carrot-like. Additionally, the harvest in my Midwest garden has been very large. However, what I would really like to mention is the fact that my plants are flowering. This is a trait not advertised. In fact the variety is sold as non-flowering. I also had flowering occur last year. I can only imagine that this variety would be ideally suited to a sunroot breeding project.
Nice. Thanks for posting, sunbender.
Our earliest are just getting ready to flower now:
Just wanted to add a follow up picture of the ‘Supernova’ sunroot flower. The disc flowers have begun to open. They are really quite beautiful.
the fact the supernova is flowering may look odd but I’ve observed that latitude and consequently the day length and how it varies during the year, plus the development stage / plant size and of course the sprouting date of tubers all concur to determine whether a certain specimen is going to flower or not in a precise location.
Northern adapted varieties such as Stampede / Norwegian dayneutral tend to flower early but only under a very specific condition: the plant must be grown enough (at least 70cm according to my observations), and the day length must be above a minimum value when the minimum height for flowering is attained (13.5 hours according to my observations). Failure to do that will cause the plant to tuberize early and die off at a small size without any attempt at further growth, even if the weather stays fine. Also, H. tuberosus, even the Dayneutral variety is never going to flower under 24 hours light i.e. close to or above the Arctic circle even if the plant may reach a large size under those conditions.
Conversely, low latitude adapted plants may attain large sizes and yet never manage to flower before senescence. Some just develop tiny flower buds that are ultimately aborted at the onset of senescence.
These specimens may actually manage to flower when the summer days length never goes above a certain maximum limit but I have no way to test this theory since my place is at ~45N. And another thing… the genes for the high and low latitudes adaptation seem to be both present in every specimen and yet only a subset of them is expressed each time.
sunbender said To those interested in sunroots aka Jerusalem artichokes aka sunchokes, please take note. I am growing the variety 'Supernova' from Oikos Tree Crops. In my opinion the flavor is very carrot-like. Additionally, the harvest in my Midwest garden has been very large. However, what I would really like to mention is the fact that my plants are flowering. This is a trait not advertised. In fact the variety is sold as non-flowering. I also had flowering occur last year. I can only imagine that this variety would be ideally suited to a sunroot breeding project.
Perhaps you live farther south than most of the sunchoke sellers? The plant might enjoys stronger sun and longer days. Did you amend with anything giving it added trace nutrients?