Growing Yacon: A Complete Profile
By Growing Home Greens Team · August 10, 2026
Yacon is a tall Andean sunflower relative grown for its large, crisp, mildly sweet storage roots, usually sliced and eaten raw like fruit rather than cooked.
The most forgiving Andean tuber
Unlike oca, yacon isn’t photoperiod-dependent, and it tolerates real heat, up to 104°F given enough water. That makes it noticeably more forgiving than the other Andean root crops in this dataset for most of the US. The tradeoff is season length: it needs a frost-free stretch of at least 7 months to size up properly, so nearly everywhere benefits from starting plants indoors well ahead of the last frost rather than direct planting.
Start early, plant deep
Start rhizome divisions in pots about 8 weeks before the last frost; yacon grows slowly in cool soil, so a head start matters even in warm climates. Transplant out once frost risk has passed, setting the crown about 4 inches deep and spacing plants roughly 30 inches apart. Wider spacing tends to produce bigger plants and roots, so don’t crowd it the way you might a compact root crop.
Protect it from wind
Yacon’s large leaves shred badly in strong wind, so give it a sheltered spot or plant it in a block where the outer plants take the brunt of it for the ones inside.
Yacon has no recorded companions or antagonists in our data. See the full companion guide for yacon for how it’s tracked. In the Garden Designer, give it a tall footprint and dig-and-replant it annually like a dahlia or canna rather than expecting it to overwinter outside the mildest zones.
Source: Yacon (Smallanthus sonchifolius), Cultivariable.
Companion planting guide for Yacon · Find your planting dates
Typically viable in USDA zones 6-11. Not sure your zone? Look it up by ZIP code.
Method: Start indoors: Start indoors from seed, then transplant outside. Yacon needs a head start most zones can't give it by direct-sowing alone.
See exact start-indoors, direct-sow, and harvest dates for your zone →
How many Yacon plants fit per square foot?
Spacing: about 4 square feet per plant (square-foot-gardening spacing). Mature height: 4-6 ft.
Varieties worth considering
- Yacon: Cultivariable sells yacon rhizomes and seeds of the straight species, propagated by crown division since yacon varieties are clones rather than seed-true cultivars. (source)
Cited from the source shown next to each variety. We haven't grown these ourselves yet, so treat this as a research-backed starting point, not a personal endorsement.
Where to buy yacon seeds
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. Some links on this page also go to other retailers we may earn a commission from as an affiliate, at no extra cost to you. We only recommend products with a genuine consensus of positive, independent reviews. See the sources cited on each item.
See it growing
Search YouTube for "growing yacon" videos → (a live search, not a hand-picked video; results vary and aren't vetted by us)
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Growing Yacon: A tall Andean sunflower relative grown for large, crisp, mildly sweet storage roots usually eaten raw like fruit, more heat-tolerant than most Andean tubers.
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