What You Need to Know About Growing and Using Cassava as a Staple Crop
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Published 2022-11-10
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Inside the continental US, cassava is generally unknown to gardeners, other than immigrants from warmer climates who grow some on a backyard scale. It's high in starch and often grows to about 12’ tall.
Its palmate leaves and graceful cane-like branches are attractive in the landscape or in the garden. Cassava’s pseudonyms include yuca (with one “c,” NOT two – “yucca” is a completely unrelated species), manioc, the tapioca plant, and manihot. In Latin, it’s Manihot escuelenta.
Cassava is virtually pest-free, drought tolerant, loaded with calories, capable of good growth in poor soil – cassava is a must-have anyplace it can grow. Once it’s hit maturity, you can basically dig it at any point for a few years (though the roots may sometimes get too woody to eat). If temperatures drop to freezing, your cassava will freeze to the ground. This won’t usually kill the plant, but it does mean you need to plan your growing accordingly. In the tropics is capable of growing huge roots and living for years. If you live north of USDA Growing Zone 10, occasional frosts will knock it down. Growing it at any zone beyond 8 may be an exercise in futility. Cassava needs warm days and nights to make good roots.
Sadly, the plant contains a certain amount of cyanide, from its lovely leaves to its tasty roots. Boiling or fermenting gets a good bit of it out, so fear not. Compared to many things we eat, cassava's pretty tame.
That said, there are "sweet" varieties and "bitter" varieties of cassava. Sweet types are low in cyanide and are safe to eat after cooking to fork-tender, but bitter types are high in it and need additional processing. You're unlikely to find high-cyanide varieties in the US. I don't have any "bitter" types in my garden, and have not seen them.
All we do to make our cassava safe to eat is to cook it until it's soft, but that's because it's a "sweet" type.
The bitterness of a cassava root usually correlates to its cyanide toxicity,
Low rainfall and tough growing conditions tend to make roots more toxic. The takeaway here is that if your cassava roots taste bitter, they're probably not good to eat.
That said, over a half-billion people eat cassava on a regular basis and manage to live just fine through it, so don't get too hung up. Get sweet varieties and take care of them, and cook them well. You can also soak cassava roots for a few days before cooking to make them even safer, though we don't bother doing that with our roots.
There are Cassava cane cuttings for sale on ebay and Etsy.
Chop a sturdy stem into pieces about 1.5’ long and stick them in the ground on their sides about two inches down and cover them lightly with soil. Select cuttings that have gotten woody, with bark that is no longer young and green. You can also plant the canes vertically, about 2/3 in the the ground, or even diagonally.
Cassava likes irrigation and good soil. It will survive drought and heat. 6-12 months later (depending on care, variety and rainfall), they’ll be ready to start harvesting. To harvest, machete down the entire plant a foot or so from the ground, throw the branches to the side and start digging. Be careful, though – the roots are easy to chop through. The roots you’re looking for grow down and away from the main stem and are generally located in the first 1-2’ of soil. They’re deep brown with flaky skin. Don’t dig them too long before you’re going to process them as cassava doesn’t store well at all. Once you harvest the roots, you’ll want to chop up the rest of the plant to make a new set of canes for planting out. I snap off all the leaves and compost them, then cut the bare canes into planting size. Remember: canes that are too green tend to rot rather than root, so throw them on the compost too. Sturdy, 1-2” diameter canes are perfect.
Ensure they’re right side up by looking for the tiny little growth buds by the leaf bases. That little dot should be above the leaf’s base, not below. You can bury cut canes in a box beneath the ground for the winter, you can let your current plants freeze to the ground and just wait for spring to bring new growth back… you can put cuttings in pots and bring them inside on freezing nights, then plant out in spring… or you can get a greenhouse and always keep a few plants in there for propagative stock. The roots can be chopped and frozen raw as well – they keep quite well that way. Start learning how to grow this plant. It’s a lifesaving staple.
All Comments (21)
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Very informative video. Living in south america, and running a food production biz I use cassava a lot. Its important to note: peal it before cooking as the skin has most of the toxin cyanide as mentioned in this video, but yes some in the inside too so please make sure you cook well like David mentions. makes great tortilla or pizza bases, (make a dough after cooking). Here there are 3 varieties of yuca (cassava) one is milky white on the inside and cooks fast, has a barky looking skin and pink inner skin, that is my favorite. another variety is a slighty yellow variety has a smoother brown skin and white inner skin, takes about 3 times as long to cook. Pealing yuca is like pealing plantains: chop ends then tap a cut all the way down the side and lever the peal side ways with the knife untill you can get your fingers in and unwrap it sideways. this is very easy and satisfying once you get the hang of it. one love.
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Bought my cassava from Pete Kanaris’ Green Dreams nursery in Florida. Has done well and had small edible roots this fall. I’m taking cuttings and planting in my gardens in Zone 8a and 8b.
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David the Good crop specific series… I dig! Do them all!!! Haha
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Still waiting on Rachel to put up a cooking video on how she feeds this to the family
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Thank you for the excellent video. will be harvesting my cassava (yuca) to celebrate December 24th which Hispanic countries usually celebrate (I'm Cuban). It's a staple side dish to our traditional rice, black beans and roasted pork eaten on that day. I will boil them then & make a "mojo" for them by sautéing onions and garlic in olive oil and pouring it on top of the hot yuca. Or we make "bunuelos", a type of fried dough made of boiled yuca, "boniato" ( a white sweet potatoe with red skin), some flour to bind, pinch of salt and anise. Roll it out into a rope, make it into a figure eight and fry. Once plated, served with cane sugar syrup. It's my first time growing it so I hope it goes well.
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Good to see you, David the Good! We really would like to see you more often. With only 10 children, a ton of garden, writing music, writing books and composting everything , you surely have plenty of spare time to make more videos for us. 😆
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We grow alot of this. My wife is Puerto Rico, so they eat it every meal. After tasting it , I had to smuggle some cuttings back. Great video.
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David, your channel is absolutely awesome! Thank you so very much for putting all this information into interesting and useful videos. Loving them! :)
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I got lucky and scored the last cassava at my local nursery a few months ago. . Made about a dozen cuttings from it. Big score 😊
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I could grow them well in Tampa, but am having a hard time growing them 60 miles north of Tampa. I will try planting the canes in pots and bringing them in in cold weather. Thank you for this video.
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Enjoyed the '50s public service video vibe on this one. I can't grow cassava here until/unless I start playing with four season greenhouses, but it was entertaining and informative anyway.
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I've had a long history with Cassava. I was first introduced to Cassava by South Sea Islanders who taught me how to grow it. Years later, I had friends who grew cassava in their yard. That is, their suburban block was all Cassava. I have grown it myself, and have eaten it. When I get back on the road and eventually find a temporary home, I'll grow Cassava. On a side note, bitter-tasting zucchini is also somewhat toxic, as is green potatoes.
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Sorry, I forgot to thank you for uploading this informative, and educational video, David. Love your work.
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I literally learned all my farming / gardening from you! I live in citrus county Florida… land of dog fennel and prickly pears. We do REALLY well with your books tho, thanks!
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David, you're the silliest gardener who's so highly informative.. or is it the most highly informative gardener who's silly... forget it! Thanks!!
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Another great informative video. Thanks again for the cutting you gave me.
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Thank you 🙏 I really enjoyed this information, motivational. I laughed when you added yourself as someone who disagrees with yourself! 😂
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Great video. So serious I was looking for the professor glasses.😁
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Thanks for sharing ideas about cassava, here in Philippines more of farmers planted it slanting in the ground. And usually we cooked the young leaves for viand...
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Can you speak about the effect of high bicarbonates in ones well water when used for irrigation. I'm in zone 9b and have had trouble for a long time with this problem. I essentially ran out of other things to try, had my water tested for irrigation suitability (Logan Labs). It came back one point below extremely hard. I dug a ditch, put in pipe and tied my irrigation system into my pond water, which tested extremely good for irrigation. There was an immediate difference in the plants. Others may be able to capitalize on this and not take as long to figure it out as I did. Good irrigation water is extremely important.
