Soil Types for growing wasabi – anywhere in the world

This topic about soil types relates to actually growing Wasabi in the ground itself. If you are not interested in doing this, then you can skip this topic.

When you want to grow wasabi in any soil, then you must have the specific requirements to be successful. These are;

• The ground must be free draining.
• It must retain moisture and not dry out quickly.
• It must be friable (easily crumbled).
• Fertiliser must not leach away too quickly.
• Must not have grown any plants of the Brassica family (cruciferous vegetables) within the last three years (this includes Wasabi).
• No application of herbicides for last three years (preferably more).

You would be very lucky to find a block of land available that meets all these requirements, so you are going to have to carry out some earthworks (in some cases they will extensive).

Try and get a piece of land that has all the above characteristics and also has a slight slope to it so that water will flow and not accumulate around the roots of the wasabi plant.

Before you purchase any piece of land we would recommend that you get a soil analysis carried out so that you know how much fertiliser needs to added to bring the amount to the suggested level for growing wasabi. These can be found in this module.

The most expensive part of getting a piece of land suitable for growing wasabi is normally the drainage and adding organic and non-organic material to make the soil crumbly in texture and at the right nutrient level.

These costs together with the fact that it is unwise to grow wasabi (or any Brassica) in the same piece of ground on a continual basis makes the growing of wasabi in any soil type not recommended. Moving the growing area virtually every crop and allowing the previous growing area to lay fallow become tiresome very quickly.

Use one of the other growing methods.