We ’ve been turn cassava starch in USDA zones 8 and 9 for year now . One of the biggest publication with growing cassava in a climate with frosts is maintain a unspoiled supplying of cassava carving you’re able to use to commence raw plants the next year .
Today , we ’ll look at the methods that worked and did n’t work on our homesteads , both in North Florida and in Lower Alabama .
How to Store Cassava Cuttings Through Winter
We ’ve been growing manioc since 2007 , when we lived in the small town of Frostproof , Florida . I get under one’s skin my first cutting fromRalph stick , who got his from the retired Indian missionaries live in his fluid abode community across the street from Lake Reedy .
He showed me how to plant cuttings upright in the grease , and we proceeded to plant a big patch of them in the fireant - infested clean sand behind our mobile place . They grew well and gave us plentifulness to eat , and it was then that I really understood the survival potential of this staple tropic crop .
It was pleasant in tang , various , full of calories , and itthrived in fireant - infested ashen sand !
Over multiple yr of experiment , we learned more about how to grow cassava . We experimented with implant it in Tennessee ( it froze to destruction ) , growing it in stack indoors ( it give way ) , growing it in North Florida , where the winter low temperature would now and again hit the teens ( it freeze down , but grow back from the ground in leap ) , growing it in heap of tropical clay down in the Caribbean , planting it on its side beneath the grunge , interplanting it with sweet potatoes ( which works great when the spacing is wide , but greatly reduces cherubic white potato yields when the canopy closes ) and constitute it in open areas of new food for thought forests .
One excellent characteristic of cassava is that the roots can remain in the ground for a good period of metre after hand harvestable size – and they are n’t a seasonal craw , meaning that you may implant cassava whenever you care and require it to produce a becoming harvest time about 9 - 16 months later .
This is a little complicated by winter in regions with frosts , since the cassava plant quit doing much of anything once the temperatures drop below the seventy ( F ) ; however , in the outflow the manioca resprouts and go on enlarging its source until they reach harvestable size of it sometime that summertime or fall .
The biggest issue with turn cassava in zone 8 and 9 is that any cold weather below 32 academic degree is capable of taking off the entire aboveground growth of the plant . Since novel cassava plant are propagated by cuttings , this is a defective thing ! You require that aboveground outgrowth so you may plant more cassavas !
Fortunately , cassava starch canes are n’t to difficult to keep alive through the winter if salt away properly . Now let ’s incubate the methods that have worked for us and some that did n’t .
Burying Cassava Cuttings in a Box
A Cuban family in the Ocala expanse shared that they “ sink cassava starch canes in a box ” in the fall , thin out canes before the first frost and compact them into a box which is then buried in the stain .
I ’m not indisputable if it ’s a composition board box or not , but I judge the method acting by eat up manioc cane in a sandy mess lined with stalk and cover over the top with a tarp and it worked .
Some years later I tried the same method acting except I bury a trashcan full of cuttings in a pile of construction George Sand . That failed , as the trashcan got fill up with wet sand and the canes rot in the dry land . I think the main reason for this was the combining of lots of winter rain and insensate conditions . When I grasp up the canes , they had started to sprout and then had been eaten by various mould and bunkum .
My current method of keep cassava canes in a box is to delineate the bottom of a freehanded pliant bin with some grass clippings or hay / straw , then lay cane on their sides inside of it , packing the ABA transit number until it ’s almost full , then topping it off with another layer of mulch before close up the non - airtight lid .
This keep most cassava cuttings live , except when the box freezes , as we had happen during last December where even my close - in porch go below 32 degrees .
Fortunately , about half of the newspaper clipping still go , so it must not have frozen all the direction through .
Keeping Cassava Cuttings in Water
One class I decided to write out cassava cuttings into about 4 ’ segments and then put their bottom ends into a bucket of water in my nursery to keep them alive .
This was a failure .
The bottom portion in the water waste into slimy pulp .
Do n’t keep cassava cuttings in piss .
Keeping Cassava Cuttings Against a Tree, Brazilian-style
Last twelvemonth , a viewer shared a method acting of keeping cassava cane in a packet against the side of a tree diagram , as they do in regions of Brazil that experience light frost .
We try it and had a few canes survive .
I am win over it would have worked better if we had n’t welcome multiple overnight lows in the teens with almost three sidereal day of weather where temperatures failed to surface above freeze . you may seehow we did in this short video .
It was surprising to see any manioc cuttings survive !
Planting Cassava Canes Beneath the Ground in Fall
One method acting that work in North Florida was planting cassava canes horizontally in the fall , about 4 - 6 ” rich , where you want them to grow in spring .
raw shoot would come forth around the beginning of April and quickly grow as the conditions warmed .
However , we tried this in the stiff , rainy , nerveless wintertime of Lower Alabama geographical zone 8b and they mostly rotted in the terra firma .
Keeping Cassava Cuttings in a Black Trash Bag
My Quaker Rick successfully overwintered casava cuttings by putting a bundle of them in a black rubbish bag and stowing them in his service department through the winter .
In the natural spring , they were covered in recollective , pale shoots and were quick to grow .
There was no rot on them , and most outlast just fine . Just do n’t wet them and do n’t let them block !
Planting Cassava Canes in Pots
Now we always plant at least a few cassava cuttings in pots as a backup man to our other methods of saving cassava cane .
Take cuttings that are about 8 - 12 ” in distance and stick them bud - side - up in one - gallon Mary Jane of soil , then keep them in a non - freezing localisation and do n’t overwater them . We keep ours in the nursery .
We just cut up a bunch of canes …
Then pot them up . We much have 200 potty of cassava starch in the greenhouse flop now .
In the leaping , we simply transplant the now - grow plants into the ground .
Conclusion
I ’m sure there are more method for keeping cassava cuttings through wintertime . In most of their common ambit , winters are tropical , so those of us that experience frosts have to do a little spare experiment to con what works . Once you ’ve cipher out how to keep the cane you need for spring active through the cold , you ’ll be well on your fashion to growing dozens of this first-class staple fiber .
As for the stumps left behind after we write out our cuttings , we mulch them with leafage , hay or pale yellow so they ’ll spring back into increase when the weather warms .
Each of those mound of old hay is hide a cassava plant life .
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Thanks for reading – this place gives you a undecomposed overview on how to keep cassava cutting through the winter , so there ’s no exculpation not to push the geographical zone and grow some casava of your own .
