Background

There are different landraces of taro. A participatory study was done for a Masters degree (Mare, 2006) to investigate the landraces that were most preferred among farmers in Umbumbulu, and the three, namely, Dumbe-Dumbe, Mgingqeni and Pitshi, most favoured for marketing, were identified. These taro landraces have different agronomic, nutritional and morphological characteristics (Mare, 2006), and so producers and marketers need to know which landrace is best in terms of yield, corm crisping quality, food quality and storability. It is also possible that different landraces differ in terms of climatic requirements and so may vary in terms of optimal planting dates and fertiliser requirement.