Taro planting materials
Tropical and temperate varieties of taro (Colocasia esculenta) can be obtained in New Zealand from various sources. Regular supplies of well-graded, certified planting stocks are not yet established, and will be needed to allow growers to focus on growing the plant in any region where the summer is long and hot enough, regardless of winter conditions.
One possible source of a range of Japanese cultivars is Crop and Food Research Institute (contact John Scheffer). These are temperate adapted cultivars that were first introduced from Japan in the 1990s. Two of them, Ishikawa-wase (an early maturing type from the Ishi River in Osaka) and Tono-imo ('taro of China') may also be available from Koanga Gardens in Maungaturoto, Northland. Tel. (09) 4312-145, fax (09) 4312-745.
Many nurseries in Auckland and other warm areas have the occasional taro plant for sale. Perhaps most common is a dark-purple or black stemmed variety best known as Colocasia esculenta var Fontanesii. The leaves are also infused with purple and have a shiny, leathery appearance.
In Auckland, see Landsendt Exotics for "Colocasia fallax, C. fontanesii (both ornamental and unlikely to be edible), and other aroids, including Xanthosoma spp., the South American near relatives of taro, sold as ornamentals but probably edible.
Opanuku Subtropicals (PO Box 21 733 Henderson, Auckland, tel. 09 837 0394, fax: 09 837 0314) offers taro and other aroids.
Near Whangerei, a range of ornamental Colocasia species (and varieties of C. esculenta) can be found at Russell Fransham Subtropicals.
Anybody can be a supplier
If you are a grower who has found good growing conditions for a particular variety of taro (cultivar), then please consider selecting your best corms or side-corms to give to friends or other gardeners or to sell.
Choose well-shaped corms without the scars that are formed when smaller side-corms are broken off; take them from plants no obvious mottling in the leaves from virus infections, strong, full-sized plants (viruses can reduce the parent-plant size and the yield of side-corms).
As far as we know, no independent private farmer in Aotearoa has attempted to provide taro seed corms as a commercial project. If you are interested in trying, it may be best to begin small and to gain experience through feedback with the growers you have given material to. No market has been established yet, as there are relatively few taro growers in New Zealand, so anyone can be a horticultural pioneer in this matter. Different cultivars are likely to thrive best in different locations in New Zealand. Eventually, certain areas may emerge as being the best places to produce taro planting materials.
Because the New Zealand summer is rather short and cool for taro, it would be good if planting materials could be offered after early sprouting in a sheltered nursery (warm, frost-free in early spring). Such plants should be supplied with care not to damage the young feeder roots, and with perhaps no more than one or two first leaves. In some areas, it would be necessary to do the transplanting after there is no danger of frost. The exact timing of each step in a transplantion system is something that needs to be tested in each area where steps are carried out. At in extreme, it may emerge that taro can be grown quite far south in New Zealand (why not Southland?), if planting materials can be shipped down from Northland. If an area is hot enough for grapes in the summer, it may well be hot enough for taro - this is suggested by the success of taro in some Mediterranean areas.
Any growers who can offer advice for visitors to this website are welcome to contact Peter Matthews (contact details below)