Can you remind me what I need to do when harvesting and recording the crop?
You’ll need to leave the plants in the ground after a killing frost for a week or so while the tubers finish up (unless the weather becomes bitter) and then harvest each one, weigh the crop and record it. The plan is that members will return seeds and some tubers but the rest can be kept for taste testing, eating and planting next year. If there is little frost, as in 2015 then lift the plants at the end of the year.
Do you want the height of the plants as they stand or the exact length of the stems?
It’s a measure of a variety’s vegetative vigour, so height or total stem length if the plant has flopped.
Can someone explain what a stylar morph is?
Flowers consist of the styles (female bits) with two whorls of pollen bearing stamens, three whorls of reproductive structures in all. The styles are either the very lowest whorl inside the flower, (short style) with two whorls of stamens above, mid styled with whorls of stamens above and below, or long styled, with the female parts protruding from the flower and two whorls of stamens beneath
It’s a mechanism to ensure cross pollination and maintain genetic diversity. It makes oca breeding a little more complicated than some plants, especially seeing that it is usually octoploid, with 4 pairs of each chromosome instead of the usual single pair.
There are pictures in the group and on the forms to help you. We’re planning an information sheet and it will be available soon.
Diagram-
http://radix4roots.blogspot.fr/2009/08/flurry-of-flowers.html
Not sure how to record my longitude and latitude?
This useful app will tell you but if you have a UK postcode that will be sufficient and we’ll work it out for you.
What’s the recommended cooking procedure for taste testing?
For the purposes of trialling them for taste, simply boiling them until cooked shortly after harvest is the standardised protocol we’ll be using.
Do I list my plants individually or grouped by variety?
Technically the multiples of varieties are referred to as replicates. Please list each plant separately making sure it’s clearly labelled with its experimental number. On the excel spreadsheet use a new line for each plant, for the pdf and doc forms use a separate sheet for each plant and put something like “7 of 9” or as appropriate in the number of plants box to indicate they are individuals within the variety.
If you’ve done the excel spreadsheet there’s no need to duplicate the information on a recording sheet which are for those without excel.