New yam planting method expected to boost yield

CORAL SPRING, Trelawny — Jamaican researchers now exploring the production of yams using leaf nodes say the technique yields about 10 times more than the traditional approach of using tubers, and Agriculture Minister Floyd Green is hoping local farmers will embrace the change. “This could be completely game changing, it would increase our productivity tremendously, and that means greater returns on investment for our farmers. It’s not just about production, it’s about productivity.

How can we produce more from the same acreages,” the minister told the Jamaica Observer Monday on the side lines of Caribbean Week of Agriculture. Yam is Jamaica’s most popular tuber and is recognised worldwide, but Green believes the industry can achieve even more. “We are the king of yam right now, but we have to ramp that up, because we’re still not satisfying demand abroad.

It’s our number one export, but we’re still scratching the surface. So that is why the ministry is fully investing in driving this research and [during] the Caribbean Week of Agriculture we get the chance to share some of the things that we’re working on,” he said. The minister was reacting to a presentation made by Montpelier Research Station in St James, on the second day of the conference.

Plant Protection Officer Charles Webster told reporters about next steps. “With this system, once it’s ratified and verified through research and demonstration, then I believe that it will revolutionise the whole yam industry because it’s not only just the soft or water yam that can use the system; the yellow yam, the harder type yam, can also use it,” he explained. Yam production through leaf nodes, known as the leaf-bud cutting method, is described as a rapid vegetative propagation technique that uses small sections of a yam vine, each containing a single leaf, a bud and a small piece of stem, to grow high-quality mini seed yams, compared with the current approach of using tubers.

Presenting during the event’s Tuber Forum, Webster said the model could produce yield ratios of up to 1:300, compared with the current ratios of between 1:10 and 1:30. “I know that once this gets off and gets off in a sustainable way, it can have a very big impact,” he said. Plant protection officer at Montpelier Research Station displays plant seedlings grown from leaf nodes during his presentation, Monday, at Caribbean Week of Agricultur…