ABSTRACT
Cassava or tapioca has many Spanish names like manioc or yucca. It is believed to be a native of Brazil. The cassava tuber is boiled and eaten with or without sugar. Cassava, generally cultivated as an annual crop, is a perennial with indeterminate growth habit because of the overlapping morphological characters and other biochemical characteristics. In cassava, flowering occurs only in branched plants and profuse flowering in spreading and branching plants. In cassava, when pollination is affected before anthesis, it can easily be done by exerting pressure with a needle on the perianth of female flowers. Cassava tuber is a root tuber. Tuber formation commences from the eighth week after planting. The toxic principle in cassava is hydrocyanic acid (HCN) present in all plant parts. In cassava, the mechanism of drought tolerance varies. Cassava breeding research is in progress at Central Tuber Crops Research Institute (CTCRI), Thiruvananthapuram, and the State Agricultural Universities of Tamil Nadu and Kerala.
