Rhubarb - help! it has a cauliflower on it!!!

[antipodes]

I have a nice second year rhubarb plant. When I looked yesterday there is like a thick stalk in teh middle with a type of longish white-green bobbly thing that vaguely resembles a cauliflower!!!
What the &*%) is this?? Do I need to keep it or chop it off??
It is not forced and i dunno what the variety is, it was planted spring 2007 and manured over winter and has about 3 clusters of stems now, the crown sems to have multiplied over winter.
What do I do? I am a bit ignorant about my rhube I am afraid  ???

[antipodes]

[morton]

It's trying to flower so just cut it off to keep the edible stems coming.

[cleo]

agreed-and as it`s that young I would only take a very few stems for eating. Be patient and let it establish-it will go on for years then

[antipodes]

Oh really? I had understood that in its second year I could harvest more  ???
It is already quite big, it only started getting leaves a few weeks ago and it is now a foot tall. But the stems are still too thin to pick.

[tonybloke]

I pick my early crop when as thick as a pencil, yummy!!
iwhat aspect is your rhubarb planted in?
I find that too much mid-day sun in a dry summer can cause flowering?

[antipodes]

dry summer in 2007??? were you living on another planet?  ;D
My whole plot is fairly much full sun but the climate here is mild.
I thought I had to wait a bit before picking the rhubarb, it doesn't seem plump enough to me... It has about 12-15 stems I guess and there is still a "ball" of unfurled stems.

[Tee Gee]

Regarding how much to use!!

Choose how old the plant is, never completely remove all the stems always leave a few.

The reason for this is to allow the plant a means to photosynthesise.

Failure to due this will result in the plant degenerating so much, it can't recharge its batteries for the next year.

So to my mind it is a bit of a phallacy to talk in terms of .........remove a few stems........... I think it it is better to think in terms of....leave a few stems.

So in prolific years you can remove a lot, in not so prolific years you would remove less.

OK thats a play on words but personally I think it leaves less room for error when deciding what is a few?

[cleo]

So to my mind it is a bit of a phallacy to talk in terms of .........remove a few stems........... I think it it is better to think in terms of....leave a few stems.

Ruddy Yorkshire men ;D-but the point is well made

[Trevor_D]

Yes, what you've got is a flower-head. Break it off & compost it.

Rhubarb seems to throw up flower-heads very readily when under any sort of stress. It could be the odd weather we've had recently - a fairly mild & dry February followed by a cold, wet & windy March down my way. But it's a difficult plant to kill!

If it's only just starting to produce stems, it sounds as if it's a main-crop. Leave it for a few weeks before you pick anything, and then only go for the really thick stems. My main-crop has stems just a few inches tall as yet; the early, on the other hand, has been producing for weeks, but the stems are much thinner.