Management of Waste Lands by Exploiting the Carbon Sequestration Potential and Climate Resilience of Cassava

Abstract

Among the tropical tuber crops, cassava is regarded as the most sustainable as evident from the results of a long term fertilizer experiment (LTFE) at CTCRI since 1977 as the crop could maintain an yield of 10-15 t ha-1 without any manures and fertilizers from the same field. The inherent physiological mechanism of the plant to shed its leaves at times of drought coupled with high leaf dry matter production and high leaf nutrient content is directly related to the C sequestration potential and the physio-chemical and biological nutrition of the soil for better tuberization and tuber bulking. The experience over 20 years under LTFE indicated that, through the acquisition of 60.38 ppm of atmospheric CO2, the leaf dry matter production was 3.573 t ha-1, reducing the atmospheric CO2 to 317 ppm, increasing the SOC by 2780 ppm resulting a tuber yield to 26 t ha-1 under the recommended practice. The above potentialities of the cassava crop designate it as a sustainable climate resilient food security crop. These crop specificities need to be exploited to utilize the neglected waste lands to partially meet the rising food demand in addition to combating the current issues of rising atmospheric temperature under global warming.