Laisha — AI Operating System for Agriculture

How to Grow Cassava

Manihot esculenta · Also called: manioc, yuca, mandioca, tapioca, muhogo, gari plant, kamoteng kahoy, ubi kayu

Close view of healthy green cassava leaves, each split into several long finger shaped lobes joined at one point on a long reddish stalk.

Photo: Manojkumar Subramani, CC BY-SA 4.0 (Wikimedia Commons)

Cassava grows where other food crops fail. It stands up to poor soil, to acid soil, and to long dry spells. In much of Africa it is the cheapest food energy there is. You do not buy seed for it. You cut a piece of stem from last year's plant. And you can leave the roots in the ground and dig them when you need them.

Growing Cassava, Stage by Stage

  1. 1. Get the land ready — Loosen the soil deep, and decide whether to plant on flat ground or on ridges.
  2. 2. Choose your planting stems — This is the most important choice you will make. A sick stem gives a sick field.
  3. 3. Keep and cut the stems — Keep whole stems standing in the shade. Cut them into short pieces only on the day you plant.
  4. 4. Plant the stems — Push them in the right way up, shallow, straight or leaning, with a big step between plants.
  5. 5. Water — Cassava needs rain at the start. After that it can survive dry weather better than almost anything.
  6. 6. Weeds — The first three months are a race. Cassava grows slowly at the start and weeds can beat it.
  7. 7. Know when to harvest — Usually 8 to 10 months. But you can leave it in the ground and dig it when you need food.
  8. 8. Make it safe to eat, and keep it — Never eat it raw. Peel it, then cook it, soak it, ferment it or dry it. Use the roots within a few days.

Common Problems & Troubleshooting

If you see: Leaves with a mixed pattern of yellow and green patches. Leaves that are twisted, crumpled, or much smaller than normal. The whole plant short and stunted. Worst on the newest leaves.

It likely means: A virus disease carried in the planting stems and spread by tiny white flying insects. The most damaging cassava problem in Africa.

Do this: You cannot cure a plant that has it. Do not waste effort trying.

If you see: The plant looks reasonable above ground, maybe with yellow blotches along the leaf veins and brown dead patches on the stem. But when you cut a root open there are dry, corky, brown or black streaks and rotten patches in the white flesh.

It likely means: A different virus disease from the mosaic one. It is dangerous because you often cannot see it until you dig, and by then the food is spoiled.

Do this: Do not take planting stems from any field where you have found this in the roots, even if the plants looked fine.

If you see: White, soft, powdery looking insects clustered on the growing tip and along the stem. The top of the plant bunched up tight like a small cabbage. Leaves small and stems short between joints.

It likely means: Cassava mealybug. It sucks the plant and injects something that stops the tip growing properly.

Do this: Do not take planting stems from an attacked plant. The insects travel to the new field on the stem.

If you see: Weeks after planting, many pieces of stem have not sprouted at all. When you pull them up they are dry, soft, black at the cut end, or rotten.

It likely means: The planting stems were poor, or too old, or dried out, or planted the wrong way up, or planted into ground that then went dry, or planted into ground that was waterlogged.

Do this: Fill the gaps now with fresh, good pieces. An empty gap grows nothing all season.

If you see: Tall, leafy, healthy looking plants. But when you dig, there are only thin, stringy roots and almost nothing worth eating.

It likely means: The plant put its energy into stems and leaves instead of roots. Usually because plants were too close together, or shaded by a taller crop, or given a lot of nitrogen fertiliser.

Do this: Next season leave a full big step between plants in every direction. Do not crowd them.

If you see: Plants wilting or dying in patches. When dug, the roots are soft, foul smelling, black or slimy.

It likely means: Root rot, usually because water stood around the roots, or because the land was infected from a previous crop.

Do this: Harvest the plants around the bad patch now, before the rot spreads to them.

If you see: Roots that were fine when dug, but two or three days later show blue-black or brown streaks inside, and taste bad.

It likely means: This is normal for cassava. It is not a disease. Fresh cassava roots simply spoil very fast once they leave the ground, and any bruise or cut speeds it up.

Do this: Do not dig more than you can use or process in one or two days.

If you see: People feeling dizzy, sick, weak in the legs, or with a headache after eating cassava. Especially where cassava has been the main food for a long time, or in a hungry season when it was cooked quickly.

It likely means: The cassava was not processed properly, or a bitter kind was used with only quick cooking. This is a real and serious risk, not a superstition.

Do this: Stop eating from that batch immediately.

Yield & Market Value

Growing the crop is only part of the job. The last part is knowing what a normal harvest looks like, and knowing what your roots are worth before you agree a price with anybody.

Remember It This Way

If you forget every other page of this guide, keep these lines. They are the whole crop, in order, short enough to carry in your head.

Test Yourself: Identification

This leaf is of which plant?

This leaf is of which plant?

Which crop is this field of, and what kind of plant is it?

Which crop is this field of, and what kind of plant is it?

Which crop is planted from pieces of stem instead of from seed?

Which crop is planted from pieces of stem instead of from seed?

Honest Limits of This Guide

Related Laisha Tools

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Sources