Taro is one of the plants that produce tubers from Araceae tribe or taro. The plant with the scientific name of Colocasia esculenta is thought to have originated from Southeast Asia or southern Central Asia. There are 4 kinds of talas namely Talas Pandan, Talas Ketan, Talas Banteng, and Talas Lahun Anak.
- Talas Pandan is taro which when it has been boiled has a smell like pandan perfume. This taro has a little purple color and at the base of the midrib has a rather red color.
- Taro Ketan is a rather sticky taro like sticky rice that has been boiled. This taro has a yellow green color and often makes very many puppies. This glutinous taro is also known by the name of talas bogor or taro lambao.
- Talas Bull is taro that has a large tuber size but it does not taste good. This taro has a purple stalk.
- Talas lahun tillers are taro which has many saplings but its size is small.
How to Cultivate Taro
a. Terms Grow
Taro can grow in areas that have a height of up to 1000 mdpl with temperatures around 21 ° C to 27 ° C and rainfall of about 1000 mm / year. The land used for the cultivation of taro should get full sun because the taro plants desperately need it.
Taro can be grown in various soil types but good soil is a soil that contains humus and enough water with a pH or soil acidity of about 5.5 to 5.6.
b. Plantation Land Processing
Land on planting land that will be used for taro cultivation in gemburkan first by digangkul or in the plow with a depth of about 20 cm to 30 cm. Selauin aims to soil the ground, it is done to get rid of weeds or other disturbing plants that disrupt the plant. After that leave the land for about 3 days. Then the land leveled again and made the bed with a height of about 20 cm.
c. Talas nursery
There are 2 ways of nursery that can be done that is by using shoots and also use bulbs.
Tunas untk seed taken from taro that has been aged around 5 to 7 months of the buds to the 2nd and 3rd. If the breeding is done by using tubers then you should select the tubers that grow close to the point of growth. Then cut into pieces and leave one eye going buds. Tubers that have been cut into pieces are then dianginkan first and time is placed in the inner layer irisaan coated with ash. After the seedlings have 2-3 leaves the seedlings can be transferred to planting land.
d. Planting Talas
Once everything is ready, immediately do the planting. In the beds, make a planting hole as deep as 30 cm and give a distance of about 75 x 75 cm and do the planting.
- Fertilization
Perform fertilization by using compost or manure that has been mature. In addition to using such fertilizers, fertilization can also be done by using chemical fertilizers such as NPK, Urea, KCl and SP-36 fertilizers. When fertilizing using chemical fertilizer, the fertilization is done after the plants are aged about 3 months to 4 months. How to grant such fertilizer is by ditugal as deep as 4cm-5cm and within 5 cm from the base of the plant.
- Sprinkling
Do watering regularly in the morning and evening, especially in the dry season.
- Stitching
Perform embroidery on plants that grow not optimal or dead and replace with new plants. This embroidery is well done before the plants are 15 days after planting.
f. Harvesting Taro
Taro can already be harvested after about 6 to 9 months, but some can be harvested after 4 months and some can be harvested after the age of 4-5 months.
Harvesting of taro is done by digging the tubers and uprooting the tree and then cutting the pelepahnya along 20-30 cm from the base of the tubers. Then clean the taro tuber.