YUCCA

Yucca (pronounced yoo-ka, or joo-ka), is a staple food on many tables of the world. You can find yucca on the dining tables in Central America, South America, Mexico, North America (Southwest & Southeast), Asia, Africa, and Australia.

The plant grows from six to ten feet tall but the edible part is the root. This root is cooked and consumed much like a potato. Yucca is found in soups, main dishes, yucca fries, and they even make yucca chips.

Sonsonate Valley Farms has planted six and one half manzanas (10.7 acres) of yucca during the month of March, 2009. The similarity of yucca to potatoes in consumption also reaches over to the seed and growing. Just as you cut potatoes into sections so you have an eye (indentation where new roots emerge) in each cutting, a similar cut is made with the yucca plant.

Instead of cutting the root as you do with potatoes, you cut the stem or trunk of the yucca plant. These cuts are made about six inches long and you want about 5 to 6 eyes on each cut. Yucca stems or trunks are referred to as yucca wood. This cutting of the wood is the "seed" for your next planting. Yucca seeds are the most expensive seeds you can buy. They are fifty cents or more per seed. That translates to $3,000 in seed cost to plant just one manzana (1.73 acres).

We were fortunate enough to have a policeman friend whose family grows yucca during the rainy season and he approached us to see if we were interested in having it. All we had to do is pay for the delivery charges. Of course we said yes. This wood was given to us in January of this year. We did not want to plant it until March. Yucca wood will store for a few months if you put it in shade and pile dirt around the bottom of the trunk, and keep it wet.

We stored the wood and two months later cut it into seed. You can get as much as five seeds and as little as two seeds per wood. There is a lot of the yucca tree that is not used. We put the unused part of the yucca through our chopper and turn it into mulch. Yucca takes 9 months or thirty-nine weeks to grow and you can pick it in one day or over a four week period.

During the holidays more yucca is consumed than any other time of the year. Because it is the dry season less yucca is being delivered to market by the local growers. Most yucca farmers rely on the rains for watering of their plants. The rainy season begins June 1st and ends October 31st. This creates a March through October harvest for most yucca growers. For this reason very few farmers can provide yucca during the holiday months.

We planted our yucca in March of this year. The yucca has been watered weekly and fertilized monthly; it will be ready for harvest the end of November, December and the first week in January. By planning our growing season (and having the water to do so), we can take advantage of yuccas highest prices during the holiday festivities. It is truly the best time of the year to be in the business of selling yucca.

Now for the financial data and returns for growing yucca. We plant 6,000 plants per manzana (1.73 acres), each plant normally produces about 25lbs of yucca root. This totals 150,000 lbs of yucca root per manzana. During the months of December and January we can sell yucca for sixty-five cents ($.65) per pound. We have planted six and one half manzanas (11.25 acres) of yucca. This should yield us $633,750.00 for the total crop. Our yucca plants are very healthy. Yucca plants as healthy as you see here, planted in this rich soil and seven months left for growing could very likely yield up to 28-29 lbs of root per plant. This would be a 16% increase over the projected numbers.