No sex please, were asparagus

An asparagus bed can last for up to 20 years, so growing asparagus at home isn’t a crop – it’s a relationship.

I t is little wonder then, that those considering the endeavour should want to do a bit of research before making their bed and lying in it. And when doing their homework, one of the first issues that would-be asparagus growers come up against is the complicated sex life of asparagus!

Well, it seems complicated but it’s really quite straightforward. In fact, antics in the asparagus bed are more like those in the human bed than the plant world – not that that is necessarily always straightforward either, but it’s a bit easier to understand (or at least more familiar).

You see, asparagus plants are either male or female, and a bit like us, the female plants produce the fruit.

In their case, bright red berries on the ferny foliage denotes the plant is female. So we get a lot of questions from people wanting to know how to tell the difference between male and female plants, and do they need one of each?

The simple answer is that, until they produce ferns with berries, you can’t tell boy from girl, but the good news is you don’t need one of each. The simple fact is we don’t eat the fruit of asparagus – we eat the new shoots. And both sexes produce these.

The fruit is actually a bit of a nuisance. Male plants that don’t fruit start producing spears earlier in the season and produce between 10 and 20 per cent more shoots than the female plants (probably because they don’t have to spend energy raising the kids). The berries from the female plants can also self-seed in the bed, clogging things up. But the story doesn’t end there… Asparagus is one of the oldest vegetables in human cultivation. Over the centuries, growers and breeders have kept a keen eye on it and selected varieties for different characteristics including colour, longevity, size, disease resistance, climatic tolerance and even sexual orientation. Yes as it turns out, not all asparagus plants are male or female. In the 1960s, Professor Howard Ellison from Rutger State University in New Jersey discovered some hermaphrodite asparagus plants which he self-pollinated. Through further breeding, he created hybrid varieties that produced all-male offspring. These varieties often have Jersey in the name and are marketed as all-male producing.

To confuse matters further, home gardeners can also choose from a range of modern hybrid varieties resulting from arranged marriages. These hybrids still produce both male and female plants but may outperform their open-pollinated heirloom cousins in certain departments such as disease resistance and longevity.

Confused yet? Well I will admit all this can make choosing a variety of asparagus to grow in your garden quite baffling. Is that fancy violet Italian renaissance model a good idea or should you opt for plain American ‘Mary Washington‘? Is a same-sex marriage from New Jersey going to be any good or should you go for a performance-enhanced ‘Pacific 2000‘ hybrid, with girls included but bred for New Zealand conditions?

Asparagus eh! Who would have guessed it was such a hot bed.

When it comes to most vegetables, I’m normally all for open-pollinated varieties so folks can save and sow seeds again and again.

But when it comes to asparagus… well, how many beds are you going to have?

So I opt for the modern hybrids. The ‘Pacific 2000‘ is such a good performer that I don’t mind the odd girl in there bringing down the average, and plus I know it does well in New Zealand conditions.

I’m not against the all-male hybrids at all, but then again, I’m not sure how well they do here.