I received a comment on my recent cassava video with a link to a Brazilian method of keeping cassava planting material alive through frosts:Â 
I watched the video and found it quite interesting. In a mild climate, this looks like a great method of keeping cassava cuttings alive through winter:
If you don’t speak Portuguese, you can set the “auto-translate” on the video to English subtitles and get a better idea of what’s happening.
Keeping Cassava Cuttings Alive Through Winter (Brazilian edition)
In short:
- Harvest your canes before frost destroys them
- Find a storage area under a tree, facing East
- Clean up the weeds a bit and make an area of loose soil
- Press your long cassava cuttings right-side-up into the loose soil in a big bundle
- Hill up a little more soil around them
- Put a few more branches from something over the top of the cuttings to further protect them from and drying out.
I think that’s the whole story, as best as I can make it out.
We’ve had some issues with cassava canes rotting or drying out during the winter. This looks like a good happy medium. If I can find any more undamaged cassava canes in the old gardens after our recent frost, I will try using this method under one of our trees.
You can have greener thumbs by this weekend!
4 comments
Might be a lost cause on a plateau in Tennessee. It only gets to below zero once or twice a year. Maybe stems packed in damp dirt in a basement?
Probably. Very slightly damp, though – they really rot fast in wet soil when it’s cold.
I will try this method, as we haven’t had any frost yet in Marion County, FL. 2 days ago I dug some 3 foot deep pits. I put cut canes in large empty protein powder containers, and then filled the containers with sandy soil from the hole I dug. Then I screwed on the lids and buried the containers upside down. I’ve tried numerous experiments without a lot of luck. I am excited to try this.
Good luck!
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