Dear Number Two

Selected deer resistant small rooted with heavy rhizome production. Impossible to get rid of in the right conditions.

Once again between deer and voles and as weedy as sunchokes are, they are not immortal. Some years were very bad in the beginning of creating my collections. They would frequently get destroyed by deer with the foliage browse which greatly reduced the tuber yield and then voles which would completely decimate a planting bed. They would cache them for later eating. These two types of consumption is actually beneficial for the tuber in that it moves it around and prevents tuber stagnation which often creates small mishappened tubers because the planting beds are too dense. A diversity of sunchokes also aids in seed production. They are not sterile and each variety had its own yields.  

Dear Number Two addresses this by following the twiggy branching habit of the Helianthus strummosus selections which often break off in the soil and missed by the voles. Each rhizome of Dear Number Two is highly branched and 'pointy' in structure filled with sprouting possibilities in case of deer and vole damage.  The browsing from deer do not appear to bother the plant as much plus the low yielding and fibrous roots and not as attractive either to voles. 

This is not a culinary selection but it is still edible to some degree. The high yielding foliage and dense compact root system make it a nice ornamental type but remember this is a Jerusalem artichoke and yes it does spread. 

Available dormant only in the spring. Limited supplies.