Nagisa's Rhubarb

Rheum x hybridum Origin: New Jersey Improvement status: Landrace Seeds per packet: ~24 Germination tested 08/2024: 96% Life cycle: Perennial EFN INTRODUCTION. Our friends Nagisa Manabe and Oscar Schofield run a lovely small farm outside Princeton, New Jersey, called River Stoan Farm, with hazelnut trees, currants and elderberries, vegetables, chickens, and one productive and beautiful patch of rhubarb. Nagisa originally got the roots from a commercial source advertising them as 'Victoria,' but there's obvious diversity in the patch, so it's clear they were not the original 'Victoria' reproduced clonally. This is surprisingly common for most commercially available rhubarb roots. Whether a variety is sold as 'Victoria,' 'Chapman's Canada Red', 'Glaskins Perpetual', or anything else, it's more than likely a nursery produced the roots from seed (or their original supplier did), so it's technically inappropriate to maintain that name in subsequent generations. Nevertheless, the patch of rhu