I know that potatoes are widely grown throughout northern and central India; the farmers have to pay enormously to refrigerate the tubers through the hot season. Consequently Indian plant scientists are leading the world in TPS culture. Similarly, potatoes are big business in north florida where summers are far too hot for successful propagation of potatoes naturally.

I agree that it seems rather unlikely that beets are a successful tropical crop. Could it be another plant by the same name regarding the "beet salad"?

On the other hand, consider that some popular temperate crops have tropical origins. Notably cowpeas and butterbeans, along with many of the traditional heat-loving annuals.

Your post is interesting, so I googled "Haiti" and "beet salad" just to see what came up -- it quickly brought up a whole bunch of recipes for "Haitian beet salad," which is basically just beets, sliced onions, and a mustard vinagrette. Yes, they are definitely "beets" as we know them.

I would suspect that beets could actually be cultivated in Haiti -- after all, it's probably no hotter in Haiti than in much of the continental United States during the summer, and beets grow here.

As far as whether or not beets would be able to complete their lifecycle in a tropical climate, not to mention at a low latitude without the dramatic variations in daylength a vegetable which is native to the Baltic coasts of Europe would have evolved under (remember -- daylength cycles are very important in inducing reproductive growth in most temperate zone plants) is another matter. I would suspect that tropical countries like Haiti probably have to import seeds of crops like beets -- luckily, they're pretty cheap in bulk.

It would be interesting to get answers from someone who knows -- anyone out there who has lived and gardened in Haiti?

Yes theoretically they could be importing their seeds - but this is a traditional dish, which means it's probably really old, and back then, farmers didn't buy seeds, especially not across oceans, and especially not poor countries (remember, Haiti started off as a bunch of slaves who just finally managed to free themselves). Even nowadays I'm pretty sure subsistence farmers in poor countries propagate their own vegetables in their vegetable gardens the old fashioned way - they don't HAVE any money to buy seeds.

For example, you don't see any traditional American or European dishes that involve cassava or winged beans or papaya or breadfruit or durian or passionfruit. I mean sure, there's pineapple upside-down cake, but that only came after canned goods and trains for shipping items became widely available, and back in the early 20th century America was one of the few countries that had these economic/technological resources.

Oh and you're right that daylength changes are important, but just plain old weather gradually getting colder until there are frosts will induce dormancy followed by flowering in temperate plants. Remember, even in tropical countries it can get cold up in the mountains (like the Andes - where the potato comes from originally)

I'm guessing that maybe if you just leave the beets in the ground long enough they'll flower. They may not have that winter to induce them, but nature isn't stupid - EVENTUALLY you've GOT to reproduce. Maybe in like 10 months to a year or more they'll just eventually finally flower, winter or no winter.

I've only been there once, and then I was a teen. But I did live for over a decade in Mexico, in two different climatic zones. In the last place we lived beets would not produce seed. We were in the Bajío, a high plain with temperate climate. But for the first five years we lived at 7000 feet, in a cool (cold) rain forest. There I grew Lutz beets and each plant, left through the colder months, produced over a liter of seed! I tried to grow beets for seed, in the Bajío, but without success.

Interestingly though, we had some success with Swiss chard. Fordhook would not make seed, but there was another local variety which would. So, I suspect that there are some varietal differences even in beets. Incidentally, I tried following the reasoning that eventually Fordhook would have to make seed. But after 2 1/2 years... nope.

What most crops like this need are about 6 weeks of temps at or below 40 F. average. So, with beets, even in the Bajío, I could have simply taken half a dozen mature roots and placed them in a bag with some moist soil, in the hydrator of the fridge. That would have done it. When replanted they would have gone to seed.

When I did visit Haiti I remember going up into the mountains to a place where they had peach trees. Perhaps at that altitude they could produce seed.

One other thought. In Mexico, a person can purchase a ridiculously large amount of beet seed, from a local ag store, for about $5.00 U.S. I bet its the same in Haiti.

George
Tahlequah, OK

Well, I think George probably came up with the answer -- a combination of right variety, adaptation to certain conditions, and cooler zones/microclimates. Certainly, if they have places which are cool enough to grow peaches, which are, after all, a temperate zone plant which requires a winter dormancy, they should be able to get beets to grow.

If only this whole process worked in reverse, and I could plant some sugar cane, pineapples, mango trees, litchis, date palms, etc., here in Michigan. I know it would probably create an ecological nightmare if they ever actually came up with it, but it would be nice if someone would figure out how to splice a gene for cold tolerance into some tropical plants. A company called Florigene has spliced the genes for purple pigmentation from petunias into carnations, and developed a line of purple carnations. Right now, we're having an ice storm here, yeah! I'll guess as far as home-grown, subsistence agriculture goes, I'll have to be content with scraping by with the squash and potatos stored in the basement.

Haiti was a French colony and I suppose that the beets, and other European vegetables, got there by that route. Beet salad with vinaigrette would seem to have the same source, being a typically French combination. Beta vulgaris grows wild around the coasts of the UK, where in many places it would seldom experience frost, the micro climate being affected by the proximity of the sea. I had a quick look at some French language sites and there seeem to be two distinct growing areas in Haiti: Zones de plaine et dÂaltitude

Dans la zone chaude (la zone de plaine), « on trouve des oignons, des tomates, et, ce quÂon appelle, dÂune manière générique, des feuilles, qui sont en fait des épinards ou des amarantes (qui son extrêmement consommés au niveau local ». Dans la zone de montagne (entre 800 et 1600 mètres dÂaltitude), poursuit lÂagroéconomiste, « on trouve également des poireaux, des choux, des carottes et un petit peu de pomme de terre ». So in the mountains they can grow leeks, cabbage and potatoes. I would imagine that beets are therefore not a problem.

Looks like le answere, Flora!

A large amount of the potatoes available in Thailand are imported, from New Zealand I believe. They are cultivated up in northern Thailand (mountains and 'cool'.temperatures to some extent, mainly for the expat market.