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Days to maturity
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Plant · P-269
Chinese Yam
Dioscorea polystachya
Chinese Yam, also called Shan Yao, is the rare tuber that is both a genuine food staple and a first-rank medicinal herb at the same time - grated raw as the nagaimo of Japanese cooking, or used dried as a traditional Chinese tonic for the stomach and spleen. It is a true cold-hardy perennial that needs nothing lifted or stored over winter, unlike many other yam species. The one real challenge is the tuber itself: it grows two to three feet straight down and snaps easily on the way out of heavy clay, so it grows best in a deep raised bed of loose soil, or in a vertical harvest tube that comes apart at digging time. Its edible bulbils, forming along the vine, are ready to eat years before the tuber reaches full size.
Record at a glance
Growing profile
- Sun
- Full Sun · Partial Sun
- USDA zone
- USDA 5–9
- Soil
- Sand · Loam · Clay
- Moisture
- Moderate · Moist
Vertical layer
Vine- Soil pH
- 5.5–7
- Plant type
- Vine
- Mature height
- 11–20 ft
- Mature spread
- 4.9 ft
- Plant spacing
- 8–10 in
- Root type
- Tap
- Spread pattern
- Both
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The deeper layer
Plan what comes next.
- Primary
- Locked ecological function
- Secondary
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- Byproduct
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Behind the record
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