CASSAVA CULTIVATION GUILD/ INFORMATION

Cassava is one of the most useful crops in the whole world, it is used for many important things like consumption for both man and animals, it serves as raw material for production of many types of products which you probably don’t even know.

In this article – Cassava Cultivation Guild, I will cover everything about cassava farming or cultivation and all the valuable information you need to know about this crop, see the cassava cultivation guild below

Prepare/clear farm land for the cassava cultivation. Dig ridges, buy cassava stem and cut at least 8inches each and plant 4 or 5 in one place and give a spacing of 15 inches, after they are 2 months, weed them and in 6months time, weed them again, harvest them at 10 or 12 months.

As I stated the procedures for cassava cultivation or cassava farming above, in this article I will go into full details of everything or every information you need to know about the cassava crop, and some of them will shock you.

TABLE OF CONTENT

WHAT IS CASSAVA

HOW TO GROW CASSAVA

WHAT IS THE BEST MONTH TO PLANT CASSAVA

METHODS OF PLANTING CASSAVA

VARIETIES OF CASSAVA

HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO GROW CASSAVA

HARVESTING CASSAVA

PROCESSING OF CASSAVA

STORAGE OF CASSAVA

IS CASSAVA FARMING PROFITABLE?

USES OF CASSAVA

WHAT IS CASSAVA

Cassava is a tuber that is used to prepare or manufacture Animal feeds, cooked and used in different recipes for human consumption on the process you can get cassava flour, starch, and pearls.

Cassava, manioc or yuca “not yucca” are the names in English for this root.

Cassava is the tuber of a perennial shrub of the family Euphorbiaceae that grows two to three meters in height (6 to 9 feet). It requires high levels of humidity and sun,
It is native to Central and South America and grows well in most tropical areas of South America, Sub Saharan African Countries

cassava was introduced to Africa and Asian countries with similar weather conditions and has become a norm for those countries too.

Cassava as known as yuca root has a thick brown skin. Inside, the pulp is whitish or sometimes yellowish, depending on the type or breed of the cassava.

Cassava, unlike other crops is planted by it’s stem instead of seed or it’s tuber and the tuber itself is the main cassava, that’s the food that is used for consumption or for industrial purposes for various productions.

The fresh root must be consumed quickly because it contains a lot of starch, and it goes bad fast. Peeled cassava can be frozen and kept for several months till it is needed for consumption.

HOW TO GROW CASSAVA

As an aspiring cassava Farner or anybody seeking the knowledge of cassava cultivation/farming must know the steps to plant and grow cassava, this is the best information in planting cassava crops.

First you must have a land, that’s farm land where you desire to plant your cassava crops, although the size of the land might vary depending on the amount of cassava crops you are planning to farm, so I recommend at least one plot of land for small cassava farming and some acres of land for commercial cassava farming.

After you might have secured your land, the next step is to get the land prepared by clearing the land off any bush, dirt’s, trees or even stones, you can do it manually with Cutlass and rake if you are a small farmer or use tractors to do the work if you have big land and a commercial farmer, although using tractor is fast and time and energy saving with alot of clean work compared to doing it manually.

After you are through with the clearing, dig ridges in the farm land again with tractor or with shovel or big hoe, the next step is to go and buy cassava stem that you will plant.

Although there are many different types of cassava, check below for different type of cassava and know the type or breed to buy when you want to buy the cassava stem to plant in the ridges you made.

When you get the type of cassava stem you want to plant, wether in the market or anywhere, cut the stems into 8 inches or 10 inches with Cutlass and dip about 4 stems in one spot on the ridges giving a space of about 12 inches gap before dipping another 4 stems and so on and so forth, but you must be careful to locate the part where the stems will germinate from and where the leaves will spout from and make sure you face that part up and don’t cover the whole cassava stem in to the ridge, make sure that about 1 inch of the stem is up and visible above the ridge so that it will germinate and won’t be killed by heat.

You have planted your cassava stems in your ridges, leave it to germinate and add fertilizer if the nutrient of the soil is poor, I recommend animal dung ( animal waste products ). or fertilizer. add one tea spoonful of fertilizer on each group of cassava ( 4 groups you planted ). when weed started coming out, try as much as possible to weed them or they might either breed diseases that will attack your crops, absorb all the soil nutrients or even outgrown your cassava and kill them, inorder words, it is important to remove them before they grow. weeds do sprout out 2 times before the maturity of the cassava crop, so do well to remove them no matter the stage of the crops, don’t allow the weeds to succeed.

WHAT IS THE BEST MONTH TO PLANT CASSAVA

This question what is the best month to plant cassava is a kind of hard to answer, why? it all depends on the weather condition of a particular region.
let me answer this by using instances from sub Saharan west Africa. In that part of the world, we have 2 seasons, dry season and rainy season, before rainy season, around January or February,farmers start preparing and clearing farm land for planting of all types of crops, I can say that if you leave in such area, the best time to cultivate cassava or any type of crop is around February or March.

But in some cases where there are irrigations I can say that this type of crop farming does not have any season or month of farming,you can farm at any time or month of the year with the help of irrigation and good fertilizer an your crops will do just fine.

I said this because according to my research, I found out that many of those Africans do farm on rainy season because they are majority small farmers who don’t have irrigation so are afraid of dry season, so with irrigation, they can also plant on dry season or any whether condition.

So in my own knowledge, there is no particular season or month to cultivate cassava unless you don’t have the necessary irrigation system.

METHODS OF PLANTING CASSAVA

There are two different methods of planting cassava. I have mentioned the first and the most popular one, that is the ridge method, the other one is known as the mounds method.

THE RIDGE METHOD: This is the most popular method of cassava farming, as I have mentioned earlier above, you need to dig ridges on your farm land and plant your cassava stem. You will need to dip the stems on top of the ridges or a little down at the center of the ridge and leave about an inch of the cassava stem to be showing on the surface.

This method of cassava farming is the most popular because it is conversant with big farmers or commercial farmers and is easy to be done with the help of a tractor and also easy to harvest when it is due because the ridges will make the pulling of the cassava so soft and easy when harvesting.

Another one is that this method if cassava farming is so simple that it does not require immediate farming of cassava when doing the ridges, you can make your ridges even before you buy your cassava stem and your ridges will still be ok. This is to say that you can leave your ridge for days or weeks even before you plant and also this method is good or should I say best for mixed farming. Corn, Melon, Watermelon etc can be planted on the floor of the ridge.

MOUNDS METHOD: This method is used mainly by small cassava farmers who are mainly farming for domestic consumption.

This method is just like the ridge method, but the only difference is that ridges are not made, but round small MOUNDS are dug one after the other all over the farm land with a hoe or shovel.

This method does require to have your cassava stem ready and you plant immediately you dig any mound.
When it comes to harvesting, this method is more hard to harvest because the mounds are small compared to ridges so the cassava roots will tend to go deeper into the ground and there by making it hard to pull out during harvest and some cassava may tend to bread off in the ground if not carefully harvested.

The harvesting tools for this method is Cutlass to dig the ground, hoe to dig the ground also and hands to pull out the cassava from the ground.

VARIETIES/TYPES OF CASSAVA

We have two main types of cassava which are Bitter cassava and Sweet cassava.

SWEET CASSAVA: This is one of the two major varieties or types of cassava,it is known as “Sweet” CASSAVA. This is not because it has quit a large number or amount of sugar than the other varieties of cassava, but because of it’s less amount of poison. Cassava has numerous number of cyanide compounds, which must be processed out of the tubers before they can be safely taken or eaten.

The sweet type of cassava has lesser of these compounds, and so does not require as much processing. Sweet varieties also produce higher harvest.

BITTER CASSAVA: Bitter cassava so much looks like the sweet cassava in both cultivation and general appearance, but produces much more higher or larger quantities of cyanide compounds.

Sweet cassava might contain as few as 40 parts per million, while bitter cassava type can go as high as 490 parts per million. Any quantity of cyanogens over 50 parts per million is considered to be hazardous.

In some undeveloped regions, some farmers deliberately switch to bitter cassava as a deterrent to crop theft.

HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO GROW CASSAVA

This article can not be complete without answering the question how long does it take to grow.
Although in general, it depends on the type of cassava you planted, the kind of environment you site your farm and also the nutrients of the soil where you plant your cassava and also how you take care of them.

In general, a good breed if cassava that is well taken care of tends to grow and matures more quickly than those that ain’t good breed or not well taken care of like weeding, watering and good soil nutrients, although cassava can survive on almost any weather condition and any soil, but the yields is what matters most, so this kind of good breed and well taken care of could take between 8 months to 12 months before they could be matured for harvest. Although some might take longer than that but in all, the life cycle of this crop is under a year.

HARVESTING CASSAVA

Harvesting of this crop is one of the most simplest stage if cassava cultivation. At this stage, the cassava crops are due for harvest, their leaves are now turning gray and dry and even falling, by this,you will know that they are due and ready for harvest.

How to harvest them is very easy and more easier to do if it is a ridge method, if it is ridges, just cut off the stem, leaving a little bit of it which you will hold to pull out the main cassava from the ground ( cassava roots ).
If is is the mounds method, it is a little bit harder than the ridge, in this method, just cut off the stem and leave a little bit of it that you will use to pull out the cassava also, now dig the cassava a little with Cutlass and pull gently to avoid the cassava breaking in the ground.

PROCESSING OF CASSAVA

After the harvest, the next possible step is to process it or sell it like that to other people, markets and industries that need them, if not process them yourself, how? it is not as hard as it sounds and does not require any professional to do, infact an average person can do it very well, here is how.

Peel the cassava one after the other and untill you are through with that and wash with clean water for about 3 time to remove dirts from it, if you are planning on doing fufu, cut them pieces and place into a big container and pour in water, leave them there covered, if it is garri, take them to a grinder and grind them, etc, when you are done, give the peel to your goat,sheep, cow, pig, rabbit etc, it is a very good food for these animals.

STORAGE OF CASSAVA

After harvest, the next important step to know is storage,this is when the consumption of the cassava is not happening immediately, so they are tend to be stored.

one of the best ways to store cassava is to freeze them with the help of the refrigerator. Before storing them with this method, you need to peel and wash them clean, put them in a plastic bag or container and place into a refrigerator and freeze them.

This method is very long lasting and best because the cassava will still be as fresh as it was when still in the ground.

USES OF CASSAVA

Uses of cassava is the main and most important reason of cultivating the cassava crop in the first place. In this article below, I will write about all the uses of cassava.

FOOD: This crop serves as a good source of food for both man and animals as i stated above. In many Nations and ethnicity, the types of foods they make with this crop differs, like in the native tribes of South and Central America often use cassava in the preparation of low-alcoholic drinks, such as Cauim, Caxiri and Chicha.

In the Eastern part of Nigeria, foods like Fufu, garri, eberebe, abacha, are made from it.
Animals are feed from the peels and sometimes the cassava itself.

MEDICINE: Both the cassava and it’s leave are good Medicine.

The various properties found in cassava root is encouraging when you look into the chemical composition it has. The cassava leaves are good source of protein, Vitamins B-12, B2, Beta Carotene, and Niacin. This crop has good number of starch that is very valuable for our digestive organ. Cassava root is very helpful in fighting and preventing diarrhea, bruises, inflammation and ulcers.

The cellulose in the cassava Root aids with weight loss and even to reduce blood sugar and cholesterol levels.

Aart from that, cassava contains calcium which is very good and necessary for maintaining and having strong bones and teeth.

The Vitamin-K, which is found in cassava leaves and tubers, also play an important role in bone mass building.

INDUSTRIAL: The cassava tubers ( cassava). is used by the industry to produce all manner of goods like the flour which is used for baking, like I stated above, it is used for alcoholic drinks, ethanol, beverages, starch, feed for animals.

IS CASSAVA FARMING PROFITABLE?

Asking of how profitable cassava farming is like asking of how profitable crude oil is. as crude oil is used to produce many products, so is cassava is!.

Cassava is very profitable because it is high on demand by both the industries, ordinary people for consumption and for Medicine, so this made the price to be very high and very expensive.

In my Place, a barrow full of cassava is sold between 25 USD to 30 USD, making it one of the most expensive farm products ever and very high on demand that people will even book your cassava even before you start harvesting them.

Talking of how profitable it is, you could make between 150 USD or more selling cassava planted on just one plot of land, and if you are a commercial farmer, you will make far more money with less stress and work. So cassava Farming/Cultivation is a very good and profitable business and many people live and depends on it for their daily food and income.

CONCLUSION

I hope that this article have helped you to gain more knowledge about cassava and it’s uses, please don’t hesitate to ask my any question via my email and don’t forget to share to other and on social networks.

References

What Is Cassava And How Is It Used?

https://www.leaf.tv/articles/why-should-you-soak-millet-before-eating-it/

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