The botanical name of Elephant yam is Amorphophallus companulatus Blume; it is a member of family Araceae. Read more on the botanical name of yam here
Varieties: Gajendra, Sree Padma
Soil: Rich red-loamy soil with a pH range of 5.5-7.0 is preferred. It is a tropical and subtropical crop. It requires well distributed rainfall with humid and warm weather during vegetative phase with cool and dry weather during the corm development period.
Season and planting: April – May.
The tuber is cut into small bits in such a way that each bit has atleast a small portion of the ring around each bud. There are also projections with tender buds called “Arumbu”. These are removed before planting as they do not give vigorous growth. An ordinary sized yam gives about 6 to 8 bits for planting. The cut pieces are dipped in cow dung solution to prevent evaporation of moisture from cut surface. In some places, the small round daughter corms are also planted. The cut pieces are planted in beds at 45 cm x 90 cm spacing. The pieces are
planted in such a way that the sprouting region (the ring) is kept above the soil. About 3500 kg of corms will be required to plant one hectare. Sprouting takes place in about a month.
Preparation of field: The land is brought to fine tilth and form beds of convenient size.
Intercropping: Vegetable cowpea var. CO 2 is recommended as suitable intercrop in
Amorphophallus.
Irrigation: Weekly once.
Application of fertilizers: Apply 25 tonnes of FYM/ha and incorporate during last ploughing and 80:60:100 kg NPK/ha two months later.
After cultivation: Weeding and earthing up as and when necessary.
Yield: 30 – 35 t/ha in 240 days.
For seed purpose, the yams can be left in the field itself till planting the next crop or the lifted yams can be stored in sand or paddy straw.
