Jerusalem artichokes are a beautiful, sunflower-like plant, but they are invasive AND they taste terrible IMHO. I got mine at a local nursery, and it was in the perennial ornamentals. The tuber-like roots were promoted as being like potatoes, but they weren’t.
That a new crop could become an invasive species, or prove toxic to an existing species, is also a possibility.
It could be insects or worms, but it’s more likely a potential disease, a fungus or something.
Of course.
But all of this is already accounted for by the OP, because it says the crop “took off like a rocket,” so none of these issues are relevant to the question as it is framed. The crop has already been successfully planted, reaped, and marketed. So what’s the point of the question? This crop is no different than any other crop now. Why should it be any less profitable than other crops?
Likewise, the statement, “After all, most anyone could fly in a few tons of the stuff from Japan and follow your example without paying you a penny,” also applies to any other crop. That is, whatever crop I grow, other farmers can grow it too, whether it’s imported or not.
So it’s just not clear what the OP is actually asking.
I hope someday you might forgive me. I realize I must be a terrible disappointment to you.
A lot of it is pest control and a lot of it is industry protection also … if you pick up a gardening catalog you’ll see anything citrus, cherries, walnuts and almonds among others isn’t allowed to be ordered from out of state …you can grow them as long as you buy the plant in state … also most of those 5 or 6 in one trees arent allowed either …
Different registry but yeah, sometimes.
There’s a list of plants which are recognised as safe foodstuffs, which are either on there due to a history of traditional use or because they’ve been tested. You can’t sell something as a food unless it’s on that list. You can sell it as a novelty ornamental and mention that it’s traditionally eaten, but it’s not gonna wind up in the food shops until it’s been through the testing.
There’s also a variety list- to register a variety, it needs to be recognisably different from everything else on the list, stable, so growing consistently the same and also, I think, be relatively sturdy. You also have to pay to have it registered, but that’s not such a big barrier as the food crop one.
I can totally see the point- it stops farmers being sold magic beans, then the sellers claiming that it’s the growing conditions not the seeds that are at fault. If what’s growing doesn’t match the ones that were grown by the registry, the seed grower is at fault, plus there’s a list farmers can look up to check claims like yield before buying a new variety.
It does cause some problems through, as you mention- you can’t, legally, sell varieties not on the list, which causes difficulties with maintaining traditional varieties and also for small-scale growers. It’s actually pretty much fine for the big commercial guys, as they’d be wanting to get their copy protection in anyway and they’re not trading half-stable varieties.
Some places get around it by forming a ‘club’ of customers, so you join, pay and then get free seeds, and you can trade free stuff unrestricted. I do think they need a loophole so you can sell ‘amateur varieties’ clearly labelled in small packs, and yes, I have campaigned to my MEP for that 
Unbelievably cheap. Aus imports potatoes – one of Gods cheapest foods – packaged in Holland. Sure, a big transport hub, but literally on the other side of the world from us. And we grow our own potatos in state, but it’s cheaper to ship them around the world than to store them here.
No need to get sanctimonious now. Like chappacula, I’m just curious as to what the question actually is. Everyone is assuming that this is a botanical issue, but the question, as framed, excludes that, and seems to be purely economic. It would be nice to know which was the original intent, but no one is demanding that. Relax.
How can this possibly be? Don’t they get stored once they are received from the shipper?
Pardon me for starting with some standard knowledge.
Before patent law this was also true for inventing a new thingamajig. You spent time and energy inventing it, it started selling like hotcakes, and five people with more spending money and contacts than you swooped in and took over the market.
Patent law was invented to remedy this, because the PTB wanted to incentivize innovation.
Now there’s nothing stopping us from creating a “patent law” for introducing a product to a new market, other than “getting new exotic tubers on the market” not being something people feel need special incentivizing. If what you’re introducing is only being produced by a small number of actors where it already is established you can try negotiating an exclusive import deal, but that’s a lot easier to get around than a patent.
Once you successfully import a plant (not sure what regulations need to be followed for commercial food production) there’s the problem of convincing a wary public to eat it (though U.S.[del]non[/del] regulations are quite lax about making unproven health claims, i.e. “Eat Japanese Super-Tubers: they support Immune Health!”). A way to get a jump on competitors is to patent a genuinely new and improved variety/hybrid.
I find they have little flavor but have a nice crispy consistency, sort of like water chestnuts. That’s if they are eaten raw as in salads (my favorite usage). Once tried them cooked, blah.
They do spread like mad in a garden setting. I have mine confined to a circular bed, from which they’d have taken over the surrounding lawn by now if not for mowing.
I haven’t tried eating Amorphophallus konjac tubers. Mine are currently sprouting after a winter’s rest, looking like dead mottled fingers rising from the ground. :eek:
Like dead mottled fingers, or like shapeless penises?
Depends on one’s state of mind, probably. :dubious:
The emerging leaves look like this (and, as you can see, shoot up pretty fast.)
Not to mention that as a food crop Jerusalem artichoke quality tends to degrade season over season, so producers have to replant sooner or later. And since they are tubers, if you haven’t completely dug up every trace of the plant, it will sprout again the next season, even if you’ve planted an entirely different crop, and continually after that until you’ve managed to kill off every bit of tuber.
This gives you city folk an idea of how bad the farm economy was in the 1980s, that people who farmed for a living would even think about deliberately growing Jerusalem artichokes.
Paul in Qatar’s tuber strikes me as a garden/truck farm crop at best. Probably the best wasy to make money from it would be to import Japanese seeds after going through the approval process.
So like dead, mottled, shapeless penises then.
Not “native to Japan” is kind of misleading. They’ve been growing it since the 6th Century. And they grow a lot of it.
I agree with this. OP has already posited that all crop protection hurdles have been overcome and the crop has gained consumer acceptance. Maintaining market share in the face of competition is now a question of socio-economics.
Jackmanii, if you’re puzzled by my comment, stop to think for a moment about what “amorphophallus” would mean.