Why my cassava kept failing and the simple soil mistakes I finally fixed

My cassava has been embarrassing me for about two years. I’ve got stunted stalks, yellowed edges on leaves and in a corner of the plot next to a broken fence post that nothing will ever grow well. I even switched them over this dry season to a different cutting variety that I had never tried previously and still nothing even remotely impressive came out of that. I basically had the whole thing wrong.

Experience is making me better

The biggest thing was that I didn’t realize how critical soil pH is. I thought that cassava was happy to plant in whatever piece of dirt was handy, but it really prefers a slightly acidic pH between 5.5 to 6.5. Most of us will plant directly in whatever soil we have on hand without checking first. If your soil is too acidic, you can add lime, but only if you apply it 2 to 8 weeks before planting. I wish somebody had told me that directly instead of having me find it buried in an agronomist’s PDF on Google at 11pm.

The next thing most people don’t understand about planting cassava is that arranging them too closely will cause them to compete for nutrients and they will remain thin. So the spacing should be at least one metre between each cutting. Equally important, the cuttings themselves also need to be planted on an angle instead of straight down. I was surprised to learn about that.

Usually yellow leaves on cassava just mean lack of potassium. A simple potassium rich fertilizer added at the time cassava is actively growing will have an immediately positive impact.

One last thing I'll tell you is always select mature woody stems, eight to ten nodes when choosing cuttings, never the soft green stems. My plot still isn’t at where I want it to be, but it’s the first time since I started planting it, that it is actually doing something.

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