Manioc Harvest Day 1: An Organic Farmer is Born

Our first day of manioc harvest was very successful. Our first (of three) test plot was located at the house where we stay when doing fieldwork at Ceren. The family who lives there was very eager for us to see our manioc plants and expressed their surprise at how big the plants had grown in a year, especially since no chemicals were used in the growing. As often happens with our strange anthropological research, we drew a bit of a crowd of onlookers- all seemingly wondering about our strange practices (though somewhat accustomed to that by now) and as excited to see the results of our experiment.

Payson and I conducting a manioc harvest

None of us researchers had ever harvested manioc, though we'd both read about it and seen it done, but it is safe to say we are the slowest manioc harvesters on record!  Before we began the harvest we first mapped the location and spacing of each height and then we took a series of measurements including the height of any beds (surcos), the distance between rows, and the spacing of each plant along a row. After a series of individual plant photographs and measurements of soil hardness around each plant, we were ready to begin!

We had such a terrific time laughing as we struggled to uproot our manioc plant!  Once pulled from the ground, we took a photo of the roots still attached to the manioc plant, measured the height of the plant above and below the ground, as well as the diameter of the stalk.  Then, we removed our tubers and did a series of measurements on these (size and weight of each tuber).

While our real results will await calculations, upon first look we all agree those growing in the planting bed appeared larger and to have more and larger tubers than those not in a planting bed. Don Julio was so thrilled by the growth of our manioc that he said he will now replant a larger area with manioc plants and market these as Chemical-free, Organic manioc! He is waiting to hear about how our research study turns out before deciding if it is worth the effort to  build the beds. What a fun project this has been.

An organic manioc farmer is born...

Don Julio with our Manioc Plants 

Science in Action