Talk:Radish

I think it would be good to include mention of the chemical or chemicals whhich give radishes their characteristic pungent peppery taste. Unfortunately I don't have that information.

The text says this: "The raw flesh has a crisp texture and a pungent, peppery flavor, caused by glucosinolates and the enzyme myrosinase, which combine when chewed to form allyl isothiocyanates, also present in mustard, horseradish, and wasabi.^[1]" Martinevans123 (talk) 09:18, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

The page currently asserts that the French "raifort" is a type of radish, but it is really just the name of horseradish. See the interlanguage link there. --Jerome K.

There is a big round black radish available here, but it is not "raifort" - "raifort" is indeed horseradish. Not sure what the big round black radish is called - I took one to the checkout line at the supermarket but nobody knew what it was. --Penny L.

i took the raifort bit out, since it is not even closely related to radishes, same family though. the big round radishes are called winter radishes, in the uk the is. --trueblood 11:54, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

what is the exact optimum PH for growing radishes in? Also do you know of any internet sites that tell about experiments done to prove this? Also if you say they grow in an acidic PH why do they also grow in a basic PH as I have found? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.12.116.136 (talk • contribs) .

"The "Cornish Radish," is a troublesome beast. Although deliciously plump and fat, they are bitter and twisted and intent on ruining your existence"?? --Rmpfu89 22:52, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

I had to wonder the same thing o_O Soapopera 12:19, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Apparently you've never met a cornish radish. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.19.4.191 (talk) 20:31, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

maybe, people should add something about how much water is needed, like for bigger growth.

Just thinking! Chef Clover 01:13, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

There are yellow radishes (here) so I added the mention back in the article, though it does not discuss the size or flavour. WLU 23:30, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

i thought there would be yellow radishes, it is the flavour i doubt trueblood 07:15, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I looked briefly and couldn't find anything, so I didn't bother adding the flavour back - good call. WLU 13:49, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Particular varieties of R. sativus radishes are grown as oilseeds (see radish oil), as sources of forage for livestock, and as cover crops. Where do you think information about them should go -- on this page, or on one or more separate pages (as in the case of daikon)? --Belgrano 20:49, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

If it's exclusive to R. sativus, I'd put it there, but if it is a property/use of all radishes, put it in this article. I'd also say that radish oil could easily be merged into the main radish page, as it is a wee stubb - just add a section on uses I'd say. I moved the info in radish oil into the newly-created section Radish#In industry WLU 15:14, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Do radish tops/greens have their own name when used as a vegetables? For example beet tops/greens are called chard.24.83.178.11 11:17, 18 April 2007 (UTC)BeeCier

no they're not - beet tops are called "Beet Greens" last i heard although i've never seen them available separately from the beetroots. (Swiss) Chard is its own vegetable. it doesn't form a root like a beet or turnip, grows a little more like a lettuce but has thicker leaves and stems. if you cut them they will regrow from the center. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 107.39.59.127 (talk) 06:09, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Usually, they're generically labelled "mustard greens" but it's not the most accurate moniker. — LlywelynII 14:53, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

I just added some more info on varieties of radishes. The summer radish subsection may be a little too list-like now, almost like a trivia list within the article, as there's not a lot to say about the differences between a little red radish and a little white radish.

There seems to be some significant differences in how to classify radishes beneath the species level. Right now the article is using a kind of seasonal approach. Another approach is Asian/European division, which somewhat confusingly considers Spanish varieties to be Asian, and sometimes even a type of Daikon. Another approach within Asian is to divide it beween Chinese, Japanese, and Spanish varieties. Still another is to divide the entire species based on use, with three convars (cultivar groups) split into the root food varieties, the seed pod varieties, and the leaf or seed-oil varieties (but with fancy latin names for the groups). And yet another seems to divide them based on harvest time, which has a similar effect to the Asian/European or summer/winter divisions, but with an intermediary category to catch some that are more in between.

Explaining all that in a precisely-worded, well-cited fashion is tough, and is more than I care to tackle in the foreseeable future, but I wanted to mention that it's an area of improvement for the article. The current intro to "Varieties" is pretty weak. I think a kind of ad-hoc approach, as the article currently does, is fine, but it could use more clarification that there's no classification approach at that level. -Agyle 01:07, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

i doubt that radish seeds are used for agro fuel but teach me. the provided link leads not to azn article about radish seeds but to a collection of links about agro fuel, some about rape seeds, which is also in the cabbage family but not the same as radishes. am i overseeing something?? Truetom (talk) 17:18, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

When I had placed that info on the page, it was a live link, now the link is dead and the home site links to a wiki mirror when radish is searched for, so it's not a reliable source. A brief google search doesn't turn up much but if a realible source can be find, it's a good addition. My gut feeling is that if it is a potential bio-diesel, it's not used as such very frequently. I had reverted your earlier removal based on the information having a source, but since it does not appear to, it can be freely removed from the body and the lead. WLU (talk) 22:48, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

One image is captioned "Cut-through radishes; showing the difference between fresh and degraded radishes" but it doesn't actually indicate which are the fresh and which are the "degraded" radishes in the image. Any idea what was intended with that photo? 128.197.81.180 (talk) 17:05, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Why is that? Do they have a scoville rating?...Smarkflea (talk) 22:10, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Technical explanation from The Chemistry of Food: "Some radish (Raphanus sativus) varieties, such as the grey–black radish with round roots, contain as the main pungent substance (E)-4-(methylthio)-but-3-en-1-yl isothiocyanate, which is produced from the glucosinolate glucoraphasatin. Its concentration in radishes is about 1–3 g/kg, resulting in an isothiocyanate content of 0.5–1 g/kg."

Spice Science and Technology has a more accesible explanation, including how the isothiocyanate compound is produced, how to adjust its rate of production up (grating, waiting) or down (salt, acid, heat). It also mentions that radish sweetness can be increased by boiling, due to deoxodizing pungent sulfide compounds "to produce sweet mercaptan compounds.".

Scoville rating wouldn't be used for radishes, as it measures capsaicin levels in chili peppers.

• Velisek, Jan (2013). The Chemistry of Food. Wiley. p. 652. ISBN 978-1-118-38383-4.
• Hirasa, Kenji; Takemasa, Mitsuo (1998). Spice Science and Technology. CRC Press. pp. 12–13. ISBN 978-0-585-36755-2.

––Agyle (talk) 05:34, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

More to do with whether it is a Spring or Summer variety and day when harvested {before or after Midsummer). 82.30.84.177 (talk) 10:52, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

"The radish is also known by other names, including '''winter,''' '''Japanese,''' or '''Chinese radish'''; '''mooli''' or '''muli''' in [[Hindi]],[[Punjabi language|Punjabi]], [[Urdu]], and [[Bihari languages|Bihari]]; '''Mula''' in [[Oriya language|Oriya]], [[Assamese language|Assamese]], [[Marathi language|Marathi]] and [[Bengali Language|Bengali]]; '''moolah''' in [[Nepali language|Nepali]]; '''moorro''' in [[Gujarati Language|Gujarati]]; '''moollangi''' in [[Tamil language|Tamil]], [[Telugu]] and [[Kannada]]; '''mu''' in [[Korean Language|Korean]]; '''luo bo''' in [[Mandarin Chinese]]; '''lobak''', '''loh bak''', '''lo-bok''', or '''lo baak''' in [[Yue Chinese|Cantonese]]; '''labanos''' in [[Tagalog Language|Tagalog]]; and '''rabu''',{{fact|date=September 2009}} '''phakkat-hua''',{{Citation needed|date=September 2009}} or '''củ cải trắng''' in [[Vietnamese Language|Vietnamese]].<ref>Charmaine Solomon, Encyclopedia of Asian Food, Periplus 1998.</ref>" Removed from the article in this edit. It would be better on Wiktionary. NW (Talk) 23:53, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Or at daikon, since many of those names are used in English. — LlywelynII 15:33, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

Probably worthy of highlighting the Hindi name "Mooli" in the article more, as that is how this vegetable is known in the British Commonwealth countries. 82.30.84.177 (talk) 10:55, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

The assertion that radishes are "suggested" for all kinds of ills is generally unsourced and too close to folk remedies to be in an encyclopedia. A reference to an unscientific "healing foods" website is not adequate backup. Myron (talk) 20:28, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

The correct page in German is this:

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radieschen

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.135.35.253 (talk) 10:43, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

In fairness, the MBG cite states "southern Asia" instead of "southeastern Asia", which is what I emended it to in this article. It's apparent, though, that was what was intended by the good folks in Saint Louis. British English's "South Asia" is basically a less orientalizing version of the old "Subcontinent" but Americans still basically go from Middle East to India to all-those-countries-near-Vietnam. When the MBG states that the radish spread from "South Asia" to India, it's apparent that what they meant was what well-heeled Brits would call the south end of East Asia. We could use more details on the exact countries where the wild varieties were found, however, as well as the German botanist mentioned. — LlywelynII 14:53, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

Removed this from the article:

The descriptive Greek name of the genus Raphanus (ῥάφανος) means "quickly appearing" and refers to the rapid germination of these plants. Raphanistrum, from the same Greek root, is an old name once used for this genus. The common name "radish" is derived from Latin radix (root).

given that Linnaeus was just using the Latin Raphanus which simply meant "radish". The Greek form it derived from (per the OED) also just meant "radish" and is a variant derivation of the PIE roots that gave us radish: i.e., it's about the prominent edible roots and has lim_{little→nothing} to do with speed. (The OED *might* be wrong on this, but that would need a {{refn}} explanation of the disagreement and some sources to the contrary.) — LlywelynII 02:32, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

In the gallery, there's a picture of labeled "dark red" that claims these are radishes. However, the roots shown look a lot more like beets to me, right down to the red stems. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.163.150.15 (talk) 15:55, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

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Why does the page preview popup that directs to this article begin by quoting the first sentence "The radish is an edible root vegetable of the family Brassicaceae that was domesticated in Europe in pre-Roman times." but ends with "radishes are yummy." This latter statement is found nowhere in the article. Is there any way to remove that? It seems like some vandalism got captured by whatever process was used to generate the preview popup text. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 165.225.48.72 (talk) 06:41, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Rettich. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. Plantdrew (talk) 03:42, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

The article has a very strong US influence which is most obvious in the descriptions of the large white Asian radish. This is indeed known by the Japanese derived term 'Daikon' in North America, but elsewhere the Hindi derived 'Mooli' is much more common. In the UK 'Daikon' is largely unknown outside specialist Japanese cuisines. I'm surprised this article is at GA given the largely American perspective. --Ef80 (talk) 11:50, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

"...their pungent odour deters such insect pests as aphids, cucumber beetles, tomato hornworms, squash bugs, and ants. They can also function as a trap crop, luring insect pests away from the main crop."

So do they deter or do they lure? This seems to be self-contradictory. If it is not contradictory isn't a list of the insects it lures, as well as those it deters, necessary? Hundovir (talk) 12:58, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Yes, "luring such insect pests as..." would be much better. Peruvian radish fly, lesser-horned moss weevil, slimy-toed tree- frog? Not sure. Martinevans123 (talk) 13:08, 17 April 2024 (UTC)