Tuber Crops

Email

Whatsapp

Facebook

Pinterest

Twitter

Copy link

The present book treats a subject that has remained largely on the fringes of academic debate despite it being related to one of the most sustainable agricultural products available to mankind in general, and to India, in particular. As cheap energy producers, tuber crops not only have great potential in meeting the food and nutritional security of small scale farmers in the warm humid tropics like India, but, and more importantly, due to their tolerance to drought and flood and wide adaptability to various agro-climatic conditions, tuber crops have time and again saved the mankind from famine during times of natural disasters. The present book covers fifteen major and minor tuber crops and throws light on their uses, cultivation process, irrigation needs and related issues in a simple and largely non-technical language.

Prof. K V Peter, Ex-Vice Chancellor, Kerala Agricultural University (KAU), Thrissur, is presently Professor of Horticulture at KAU. He guided over 1000 scientists as Director of Research and earlier as Director of Indian Institute of Spices Research, Calicut. Basically a horticulturist and academician, he is a recipient of Rafi Ahmad Kidwai Award from ICAR and Recognition Award from National Academy of Agricultural Sciences, New Delhi. Author of many significant books and research papers, his major publications include a three-volume Handbook of Herbs and Spices published by Woodhead Publishing Company, UK, and Plantation Crops published by NBT, India

Tropical tuber crops are known as the energy reservoirs of the nature. They provide the much-needed calories to about 1200 million people around the world, more specifically in developing countries in Asia and Africa. Tuber crops are recognized as the most efficient converters of solar energy into carbohydrates. Among tuber crops, cassava is grown over 16 million ha with a production of 172.7 million tonnes with an energy productivity of 250 calories x 103 and dry matter production of 11.9 kcal/day. Sweet potato is grown over 9.5 million ha, with a production of 140.9 million tonnes with an energy productivity of 150 calories x 10³ and dry matter production of 21.1 kcal/day. Tuber crops are tolerant to drought and flood and have wide adaptability to various agro-climatic conditions. Tuber crops like yams and aroids (colocasia, alocasia, xanthosoma) are used as vegetable crops. As cheap energy producers, tuber crops have greater potential in meeting the food and nutritional security of small scale farmers, in the warm humid tropics.

Cassava is grown in India in 13 states over an area of 2.35 lakh ha with a productivity of 26 tonnes/ha. Kerala and Tamil Nadu are the major producers. In North- Eastern India, cassava is one of the crops in the mixed stands. Sweet potato growing states are Orissa, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh with marginal production in Kerala, Madhya Pradesh and North Eastern States. Productivity of sweet potato in India is only 8.3 tonnes/ha as against the world productivity of 13 tonnes/ha. Yams (larger yam, lesser yam, white yam, potato yam) and aroids are grown throughout India and are grown mainly in home steads or in fragments under mixed and multiple cropping systems. Minor tuber crops like elephant foot yam, yam bean and winged bean are grown in isolated pockets for edible tubers, which have high energy and medicinal values. Winged bean was called the vegetable of the 20th century. The leaves, flowers, pods, seeds and tubers are edible and rich in proteins and fats.

Cassava is a high carbohydrate containing warm humid tropical tuber crop, the tubers used as human food, industrial raw material, and animal and poultry feed. Cassava grows in poor soils under near drought conditions and are grown throughout the year. Cassava is introduced to India by the Portuguese during the early eighteenth century. At present, cassava is cultivated in more than 80 countries. Brazil has the highest production, followed by Thailand and Indonesia. In times, when cereals like rice and wheat became scarce and unaffordable to common people, it was cassava with fish which saved people from famine, hunger and malnutrition.

Sweet potato is native to tropical America and from there, disseminated to tropical islands of the Pacific and later to India. It is grown in Africa, India, China, Japan, Malaysia, South Pacific Islands, Tropical America and the Southern USA. Sweet potato comes up well in land of low fertility and in near drought conditions, with low inputs like water and manure. Sweet potato is normally included in rotations with cassava, rice, colacasia etc. In India, sweet potato is grown in Orissa, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Assam, Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka. Sweet potato is a food, a raw material for starch based industry and is an animal feed.

Edible aroids consist of colocasia (taro, addoe, dasheen), xanthosoma (tannia, new cocoyam), alocasia (giant taro) and elephant foot yam. In addition to tubers as edible food, leaves and leaf stalks are used as vegetables. Aroids are herbaceous plants and many are used as ornamentals and a good number of wild forms are medicinal plants.