The Canna Agriculture Group contains all of the varieties of ''Canna'' used in agriculture. Canna achira and Canna edulis (Latin: eatable) are generic terms used in South America to describe the cannas that have been selectively bred for agricultural purposes, normally derived from ''C. discolor''. Tanaka, N. 2001. Taxonomic revision of the family Cannaceae in the New World and Asia It is grown especially for its edible

rootstock A rootstock is part of a plant, often an underground part, from which new above-ground growth can be produced. It could also be described as a stem with a well developed root system, to which a bud from another plant is grafted. It can refer to ...

from which

starch Starch or amylum is a polymeric carbohydrate consisting of numerous glucose units joined by glycosidic bonds. This polysaccharide is produced by most green plants for energy storage. Worldwide, it is the most common carbohydrate in human diet ...

is obtained, but the leaves and young seed are also edible, and achira was once a staple foodcrop in

Peru Peru, officially the Republic of Peru, is a country in western South America. It is bordered in the north by Ecuador and Colombia, in the east by Brazil, in the southeast by Bolivia, in the south by Chile, and in the south and west by the Pac ...

and

Ecuador Ecuador, officially the Republic of Ecuador, is a country in northwestern South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and the Pacific Ocean on the west. It also includes the Galápagos Province which contain ...

.Chaté, E. (1867) Le Canna, son histoire, sa culture. Libraire Centrale d'Agriculture et de Jardinage

Farming varieties

There are some named agricultural varieties, and published comparative studies have involved: Many more traditional varieties exist worldwide, they have all involved human selection and so are classified as agricultural

cultivars A cultivar is a kind of cultivated plant that people have selected for desired traits and which retains those traits when propagated. Methods used to propagate cultivars include division, root and stem cuttings, offsets, grafting, tissue cult ...

. Folk lore states that ''Canna edulis'' Ker-Gawl. is the variety grown for food in South America, but there is no scientific evidence to substantiate the name as a separate species. It is probable that this is simply a synonym of ''C.'' ''discolor'', which is grown for agricultural purposes throughout South America and Asia. In the Andes, the rhizome can be harvested within 6 months from planting out and the yields ranges 13–85 tonnes per hectare, with 22–50 tonnes being average, though larger yields are obtained after 8–10 months. In Queensland, Australia, they are able to obtain a yield of 5–10 tons of C. 'Queensland Arrowroot' tubers per acre.Arrowroot, James M. Stephens, University of Florida
/ref> Most cultivated forms do not produce fertile seed. There are also sterile triploid forms, these contain a significantly higher proportion of starch, though their cropping potential is not known.Khoshoo, T.N. & Guha, I. - Origin and Evolution of Cultivated Cannas. Vikas Publishing House

Animal fodder

The rhizomes and leaves are good

fodder Fodder (), also called provender (), is any agriculture, agricultural foodstuff used specifically to feed domesticated livestock, such as cattle, domestic rabbit, rabbits, sheep, horses, chickens and pigs. "Fodder" refers particularly to food ...

for cattle and pigs and it is grown for this purpose in Tropical Africa and

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; ) is an island U.S. state, state of the United States, in the Pacific Ocean about southwest of the U.S. mainland. One of the two Non-contiguous United States, non-contiguous U.S. states (along with Alaska), it is the only sta ...

, where it is harvested 4–8 months after planting.Burkill, H.M. 1985. The useful plants of west tropical Africa, Vol 1
/ref> The foliage of Agricultural Canna is also used for its silage making properties, which are superior to those of corn.

Human consumption

Canna is still grown for human consumption in the

Andes The Andes ( ), Andes Mountains or Andean Mountain Range (; ) are the List of longest mountain chains on Earth, longest continental mountain range in the world, forming a continuous highland along the western edge of South America. The range ...

and also in

Vietnam Vietnam, officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV), is a country at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of about and a population of over 100 million, making it the world's List of countries and depende ...

and southern

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

, where the starch is used to make

cellophane noodles Glass noodles, or fensi (), sometimes called cellophane noodles, are a type of transparent noodle made from starch (such as mung bean starch, potato starch, sweet potato starch, tapioca, or canna (plant), canna starch) and water. They originated ...

.Reappraisal of Edible Canna as a High-Value Starch Crop in Vietnam

Edible qualities

Rootstock – actually a rhizome, this can be eaten either raw or cooked. It is the source of ''canna starch'' which is used as a substitute for

arrowroot Arrowroot is a starch obtained from the rhizomes (rootstock) of several tropical plants, traditionally ''Maranta arundinacea'', but also Florida arrowroot from ''Zamia integrifolia'', and tapioca from cassava (''Manihot esculenta''), which is of ...

. The starch is obtained by rasping the rhizome to a pulp, then washing and straining to get rid of the fibres. This starch is very digestible. The very young rhizomes can also be eaten cooked, they are sweet but fibrous. The rhizome can be very large, sometimes as long as a person's forearm. In Peru the rhizomes are baked for up to 12 hours by which time they become a white, translucent, fibrous and somewhat mucilaginous mass with a sweetish taste. The starch is in very large grains, about three times the size of

potato starch Potato starch is starch extracted from potatoes. The cells of the root tubers of the potato plant contain leucoplasts (starch grains). To extract the starch, the potatoes are crushed, and the starch grains are released from the destroyed cells. Th ...

grains, and can be seen with the naked eye. This starch is easily separated from the fibre of the rhizome. Young shoots – these can be cooked and eaten as a green vegetable and are quite nutritious, containing at least 10% protein.Plants for a Future - Canna Edulis
/ref>

References

Notes

Bibliography

* Bourne, M.J., G.W. Lennox and S.A. Seddon. 1988. Fruits and Vegetables of the Caribbean. Macmillan Publishers Ltd., London. * Chaté, E. - Le Canna, 1866. * Facciola, S. 1990. Cornucopia: A Source Book of Edible Plants. Kampong Publications, Vista. * {{cite journal , last = Fang , first = Yang , author2=Wang PingHua , author3=Xie ShiQing , author4=Zhang WeiGuang , author5=Fang DeHua , year = 2004 , title = Technique of scarifying and fermenting process of Canna starch. , journal = Southwest China Journal of Agricultural Sciences , volume = 17 , issue = 2 , pages = 231–234 , location = Southwest Agricultural University, Chongqing 400716, China. * Gade, Daniel W. Achira, the Edible Canna, Its Cultivation and Use in the Peruvian Andes. Soc. Economic Bot. Volume 20. pp. 407–415. * Hajoon Jun, Ikhwan Jo, Soon Hwangbo, Jusam Lee, Katsi Imai, 2006, Feeding Value and In situ Digestibility of Edible Canna for Silage * Honychurch, P.N. 1986. Caribbean Wild Plants and Their Uses. Macmillan Publishers Ltd., London. * The Wealth of India. 1948-1973. Raw Materials, Vol. I-X. Indian Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, New Delhi. * Khoshoo, T.N. & Guha, I. - Origin and Evolution of Cultivated Cannas. Vikas Publishing House. * Lerman, J. C. and E. M. Cigliano. 1971. New carbon-14 evidence for six hundred years old Canna compacta seed. Nature 232: 568—570. * Segeren, W & Maas, PJM - The genus Canna in northern South America (1971), Acta Botanica Neerlandica. 20(6): 663-680. * Dr. E. Lewis Sturtevant (1887) Sturtevant's Edible Plants of the World, New York Agricultural Experiment Station. * Tanaka, N. 1998. The Angiosperm flora of Singapore. Part 8. Cannaceae. Gard. Bull., Singapore 50: 3537, illus. * Tanaka, N. 1998. On the genus Canna in Yaeyama Islands, the Ryukyus, Japan. J. Jap. Bot. 73: 165169, illus. (In Japanese, English sum.) * Tanaka N. The utilization of edible Canna plants in southeastern Asia and southern China. Soc. Economic Bot. Volume 58. pp. 112–114. * Tanaka, N. 2001. Taxonomic revision of the family Cannaceae in the New World and Asia. Makinoa ser. 2, 1:34–43. * Donald Ugent, Shelia Pozorski and Thomas Pozorski. New Evidence for Ancient Cultivation of Canna edulis in Peru. Soc. Economic Bot. Volume 38. pp. 417–432.

External links

Arrowroot, James M. Stephens, University of Florida

Plants for a Future - Canna Edulis

Plants for a Future - Canna indica

Reappraisal of Edible Canna as a High-Value Starch Crop in Vietnam

Progress in the Development of Economic Botany and Knowledge of Food Plants.

Tropical agriculture