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Planting
Days to maturity
Seasonal yields
Sow indoors · Direct sow · Transplant outdoors
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Plant · P-359
Elephant Foot Yam
Amorphophallus paeoniifolius
Elephant foot yam is a tropical perennial grown for its large starchy corm, which can reach 50 cm across and 9 kg after three years, plus cooked young leaves and stems. The raw corm is toxic - calcium oxalate crystals puncture the mouth and tongue - so thorough cooking or full drying is required before it is eaten. Reaching a harvest takes three full growing seasons rather than one, and cultivated forms of the same corm also make a substantial pig feed.
Record at a glance
Growing profile
- Sun
- Full Sun · Partial Sun
- USDA zone
- USDA 11–12
- Soil
- Sand · Loam
- Moisture
- Moderate
Vertical layer
Herbaceous- Soil pH
- 6–7.5
- Plant type
- Perennial
- Mature height
- 32 in
- Mature spread
- 4.5–5 ft
- Plant spacing
- 14–35 in
- Root type
- Bulb
- Spread pattern
- None
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The deeper layer
Plan what comes next.
- Primary
- Locked ecological function
- Secondary
- Locked ecological function
- Byproduct
- Locked ecological function
Behind the record
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