Taro

Siting: Taro grows best in partial shade or filtered sun, though it also tolerates full sun, and prefers moist, rich loam soil while being sheltered from strong winds.

Watering: The crop has a high water requirement and a long growing season, needing access to water for most of the year; it can be grown flooded in wet paddies or in non-flooded dry-culture fields, though not every genetic line tolerates wet culture.

Propagation: Taro is grown from corms that are transplanted into the field and can be divided and increased much like other perennials with underground storage organs; where winters are cool the foliage dies back and resprouts from the corm the following spring.

Taro is generally free of serious insect or disease problems.

Culinary: The corm is the crop's principal food product, traditionally boiled, baked, or steamed as a starchy vegetable and, in Hawaii, pounded into poi; young leaves are also cooked as a nutritious green, called callaloo in the Caribbean. All parts contain acrid compounds that irritate the mouth, throat, and skin if eaten raw, so corms and leaves are always thoroughly cooked before eating. Corms are further processed into taro chips, dehydrated commodities, starch, and flour, and the starch's high digestibility has made taro-based flour a base for infant formula and canned baby foods.

Medicinal: Various peoples have recorded traditional medicinal uses of taro: the Pinatubo Negritos of the Philippines boiled the leaves and corms for women in difficult childbirth, used dew collected in the leaves as an eyewash, and applied the petiole's juice to arrest bleeding, while heated tubers were used for rheumatic pain and honey mixed with tuber ash for mouth sores. In Hawaii, raw juice mixed with sugar was taken to reduce fever and taro was used against ailments ranging from constipation to tuberculosis, and in Malaysia warmed leaves were used to compress a child's head.

Ornamental: Beyond the kitchen, taro is widely grown as an ornamental for its large, showy, sometimes purple-tinted foliage, used as a landscape specimen, in borders, in water gardens, or as a houseplant.

Other: The leaf blades and petioles have also been used as livestock feed, and taro starch has found industrial use in the manufacture of biodegradable plastics.

Taro is believed to have originated in South East Asia, including India and Malaysia, from where it and related edible aroids spread from eastern India to Formosa and the Solomon Islands, aided by seed dispersal through birds and palm civets. It was later introduced far beyond this range, including to Florida in 1910 as a proposed substitute crop for potatoes.