Growing Tapioca

Once when we visited a relative's farm,they kindly provided us a stump of the tapioca plant to grow in our home garden. It was just as an experiment that we planted the stump(which was split into 7-8 pieces) in the garden knowing well enough that we will not see any result for another 8 months. It is certainly a long growing period and maintaining all the plants over this time span is certainly difficult. Apparently the tapioca requires less maintenance in terms of watering but since we planted them in amongst the other veggie plants in the small backyard garden, we could not avoid over watering them most of the times.

The foliage growth was abundant after first month growth but the plant count dwindled as we went to the four month mile mark.We foresaw that and was not bothered much since the three that remained were certainly strong and tall and had a sturdy stem.

Once we reached the eighth month we pulled a plant but to our disappointment we did not see any tuber formation at all. Thus went one and the next month another plant came off with no growth of tubers. The last one that remained was left for a period of 10 months in total.We could not let the plant use the ground anymore and our patience was all gone. On a fine day, I and mom and dad pulled the plant out and was so surprised to see a big,well developed tapioca tuber.What then followed was an hour of meticulous labour which saw us leave with five good sized tubers and several small side roots that were not yet developed.We were happy that we got something atleast instead of a complete washout.

One thing we feel upon hindsight is not to have planted the stumps in the center of the garden. We have saved the stumps for propagation but not yet planted them.. thinking hard whether to really invest another 10 months in them.I think it will just be a one time experiment for us.