In 1902, The USDA Bet Everything On This Plant. Then It Disappeared. What Happened?
Ancestral Yields
Feb 12, 2026
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2cFnhQslqk

The USDA Called It The Next Supercrop In The 1900s. Today, It's A Garden Plant. What Happened?

There is a plant that grows an inch a day, towers ten feet over your garden, and contains compounds that target pain like a pharmacy in a stalk. In 1902, the US government didn't just study it—they launched a massive campaign to put it on every dinner plate in America. It was served to Presidents, loved by inventors, and hailed as the "Winter Asparagus."

But within a few decades, it vanished. Not because it failed to grow, but because it refused to fit into the industrial machine. This is the story of Udo (Aralia cordata), the giant medicinal herb that challenged the 20th-century food system, and why you should plant it in the shade today.