White Yams MASSIVE harvest.

I dug this up from one plant,   I am set for my potato need for a while...

I can't tell where in the world you are. Maybe drop in a picture after it's cleaned up enough so we can see how much usable material there is.

I've only seen them growing in the Philippines, where people plant them and then walk away without caring for them at all. They can become quite massive.

This picture is from a few years ago.     23.6 lbs     I am in Florida.    That is a 1lb  peanut butter jar for size comparison.     Yes you plant this walk away and harvest, one of the best gifts God ever gave us in my opinion.

That's what I like about many root crops. I call them root crops whether they are roots or tubers. You prepare a good spot for them and once they are established you just come back sometime and pick them. Some, like potatoes grown in temperate zones, have a definite time of harvest, but even that is much more flexible than above ground crops. You can't just decide to leave the corn standing for an extra month, unless you want to let it rot or feed it to raccoons and crows. But you can leave potatoes,  sweet potatoes, yams, cassava, chayote roots and several other things in the ground, even if they aren't actively growing. There might be some losses, but on the whole you're likely to see more growth while they are being stored. Then when you harvest, if some are missed, you get more of them.

Dale Hodgins wrote:That's what I like about many root crops. I call them root crops whether they are roots or tubers. You prepare a good spot for them and once they are established you just come back sometime and pick them. Some, like potatoes grown in temperate zones, have a definite time of harvest, but even that is much more flexible than above ground crops. You can't just decide to leave the corn standing for an extra month, unless you want to let it rot or feed it to raccoons and crows. But you can leave potatoes,  sweet potatoes, yams, cassava, chayote roots and several other things in the ground, even if they aren't actively growing. There might be some losses, but on the whole you're likely to see more growth while they are being stored. Then when you harvest, if some are missed, you get more of them.

Yes, it is like having a refrigerator in the ground.

Since I have been growing these, I have learned to trim off the top with the roots and re-plant that part.

I am also growing sweet potatoes and cassava as well.    

The other advantage of the white yam is I can cut off a chunk of it, and it does not go bad in the open air.  It stays good so I can keep cutting off chunks of just what i want to cook.

Some people complain they don't want to deal with the poison in the plant, I am glad for it as the insecticide is built into this plant it defends itself, just like cassave and tree spinach.