Oat root cultivation

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Oat root, or Goat-breederTragopogon porrifolius) - this is a biennial plant of the genus Kozloborodnik, Astrov family, the cooks call this plant - "salsifi." In the encyclopedic dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron, you can find the Russian name - a goddamn beard.

It grows wild in Siberia, in the countries of the Mediterranean part of Europe and in North Africa. Oat root is also introduced into the ecosystems of Great Britain, the countries of Northern Europe, the USA and South Africa.

This plant is grown mainly for the sake of fleshy roots, which in significant quantities contain inulin, which is necessary for people suffering from diabetes. In a number of European countries (in particular, in Italy and France) it is grown as a vegetable crop.

Oat root cultivation

The technique for growing oat root is quite simple. If you will sow oat root on poor, mineral soils, you need to make fertilizer when digging the beds, consisting of ammonium nitrate and potassium salt.

Since the plant is cold-resistant, it is possible to sow oat root relatively early. Moreover, the sooner you sow the seeds, the more germinating the seedlings will be. For sowing, it is better to use seeds harvested last year, since the seeds of oat root poorly retain germination. If the area under sowing is large enough, seeds are sown with a row spacing of 25 cm.

To sow seeds evenly into the soil, they must be mixed with peat (1:10). Seeds up to 2 cm deep are sown. When 2-3 real leaves appear on the sprouts, the crops are thinned out, leaving 12 cm between the plants. If the soil in the area under the oat root is fertile, it is enough to leave 8 cm between the plants to get the crop.

In the first year of life, the oat root forms a rosette of long leaves and a fleshy root crop. In the second year, a tall, up to one meter, stem grows, which branches strongly and ends with flowers.

Oat root care consists in loosening and weeding the soil.

Also, oat root can be sown with freshly picked seeds in mid-summer. Then by autumn the plant will grow stronger, winter in the snow and will start to grow in early spring.

Growing oat root as a biennial culture, you can get larger root crops.

Harvest oatmeal in late autumn. Part of the crop can be left in the ground and used in spring. For the sake of edible white roots, it is grown as a vegetable crop in many countries of the world.

Eating

At oat root roots are eaten. When cooking in salt water, the bitter aftertaste of the raw root disappears. The roots are consumed boiled, fried and stewed, and also added to soups.

Young stems with leaves are also used. Stems are recommended to be rolled between the palms to release from the bitter milky juice.