I finally have some time to update on my indigo from this summer! Even though life's event put me a little behind on my indigo, I am still on target for the goal I set for my indigo this year--a comparison of the plants. I have three varieties going. All though all are polygonum tinctorium, they are each a little different. For my project this summer, I used the seeds I had left from Companion Plants and two varieties I was able to purchase from the
Indi Growing Blue project. I compared the two varieties of seeds in this post
http://elephantbooty.blogspot.com/2011/04/looking-close-at-indigo-seeds.html Now to compare the growing plants:
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The kojyoko variety will have white bloom and green stem. |
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The senbon variety will have pink blooms and stems with a reddish cast. |
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From Companion Plants, labeled Polygonum Tictorium, but not sure of the actual variety. | | | | | | | | | | |
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From the pictures above, you can see that the top two look very similar as far as the leaves go. I need to get a picture of the stems for my next post. The bottom picture shows how the leaves are darker and have a tendency to curl on the other variety. It is interesting for me to note that Companion Plants no longer carries Polygonum Tinctorium and has instead Indigofera Tinctoria. I am wondering if what they had before was not labeled correctly or had not been indentified correctly.
In order to make sure I get some seeds from these plants, I am going to let one group from each row remain uncut. I will be able to harvest the leaves soon and I am devising a method for comparing the yields of each variety.