Elephant foot yam cultivation

I had planted sorme elephant foot yam plants two years ago and last year it was not harvested, when it germinated, some cowdung was applied and soil was piled around it. This year I harvested some and used at home, and remaining was harvested and planted them after cutting them to smaller pieces. Digging them in the summer was hard since there is no moisture in the soil, but they say, it has to be planted in malayalam month 'kumbam' (which falls in february and march).

I dug them out, and some were damaged, cut them into pieces and planted them in the same place after applying dried leaves and cowdung. It was bit laborious and later when I dug some new holes, I made just small ones and later left that plan also and just loosened the soil around and then put the cuttings and applied cowdung and dried leaves over it. This was relatively easy, and in one place it was watered and their soil was quite loose, felt very happy about that. When water reaches soil, it becomes very loose since there are many earth worm holes.

Planting with minimal labor by loosening the soil and then applying cowdung and dried leaves is an easy task. Probably I can plant around 50 numbers in a day, may be typical laborer's can plant 100 numbers in a day. From my experience, if we apply some cowdung slurry once in 15 days or so, it should grow well. This year, planning for such activities, to be seen what works out.

Harvested ones... 

Cut pieces for planting 

Very hard ground, not easy to dig out in the summer..may be I have to wait for rain...

Just loosened the soil using digging bar...