Making a good choice of cassava for planting

Obinwannem News Making a good choice of cassava for planting

Cassava, to many people, may just be cassava and the best such people will consider before planting it is the availability of its stems.

This however has caused some cassava farmers some percentages of their profit thereby thinking cassava production is a non-lucrative business. The fact is that you cannot continue doing things the same way and expect different results.

I will be unveiling some varieties of cassava we have so that you get familiar with them and also enlighten you on these varieties for you to know which to go for. Please do not just plant cassava, know the breed you are planting.

Cassava research has shown that ut comes in different varieties. Some of these varieties are known for high starch content while some are known for low starch content. Therefore, if you are growing your cassava for starch production, you should select a variety with a high starch content. Also, if you are growing it for gaari production, you should go for a variety with low starch content.

The already released varieties and their names are as follows:

  1. IBA961632 ‘Farmer’s Pride’
  2. IBA980581 ‘Dixon’
  3. CR36-5 ‘Ayaya’
  4. IBA070593 ‘Sunshine’ and
  5. IBA980505 ‘Fine face’.

TME 419, a variety already popular among farmers, remains unchanged as TME419.

The yet-to-be-released ‘pre-release’ varieties and their new names are

  1. TMS13F1160P0004 ‘Game Changer’
  2. TMS13F1343P0022 ‘Obasanjo-2’
  3. NR130124 ‘Hope’ and
  4. TMEB693 ‘Poundable’.

TME 419 is multipurpose cassava. It has good starch content and also forms a bigger root. This makes TME 419 one of the most planted cassava types. 419 takes a period of 9-12 months to mature and its ability to form bigger and complex roots gave rise to the name 419.

If you are growing your cassava mainly for ethanol production, go for varieties like TMS30572 or TMS 419.

We need to know that there are other varieties of cassavas that serve different purposes and may not yield good result if used against their purpose.

It is therefore recommended that you should know the variety of the cassava you want to buy for planting and search for the characteristics of such if it matches your purpose and intention of growing cassava.

Nwachineke Onyeke Chekwube reporting, Obinwannem news writer / December 4, 2021

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