Yuca, or cassava, is a shrubby perennial 6 to 8 feet tall grown for its starchy roots, and one of the summer-proof crops for Florida gardens. It needs a long frost-free stretch, eight to eleven months, to make usable roots. Safety comes first: the root bark and the leaves contain prussic acid, so roots must be peeled and cooked, and leaves are never eaten raw.1, 2
When to plant yuca (cassava) in Florida
Region
Months on the UF/IFAS calendar
North Florida
Not on the UF/IFAS list for this region.
Central Florida
Marchtransplant with care · Apriltransplant with care · Maytransplant with care · Junetransplant with care · Julytransplant with care
South Florida
Marchtransplant with care · Apriltransplant with care · Maytransplant with care
2 to 4 (Gardening Solutions); 3 to 4 (production handbook)
Spacing in the row (inches)
48 (4 feet) for gardens per Gardening Solutions; 24 (2 feet) in the commercial handbook
Between rows (inches)
48
Days to harvest
8 to 12 months
Plant short sections of mature stem, about 10 inches long (the commercial handbook says 10 to 12 inches). In Miami-Dade County the handbook says cassava can be planted all year but mostly February to April. Prepare the soil and fertilize as for sweet potatoes. The handbook also notes that no named cassava varieties are currently known in South Florida; growers use a few unnamed clones from Caribbean countries.
Same soil preparation and fertilizer as sweet potatoes (Gardening Solutions). The production handbook stresses keeping potassium adequate for root development and limiting nitrogen, which pushes leafy growth.
Needs eight to 11 frost-free months to produce edible roots. The handbook says roots can start forming about 28 days after planting and begin thickening with starch around six weeks, and the number of roots that will thicken is settled early. A variegated form is grown as an ornamental.
Roots form in clusters of four to eight at the base of the stem, usually 1 to 4 inches thick and 8 to 15 inches long. Dig or pull them and use them soon, because they spoil quickly after harvest. Commercial growers often cut plants back two weeks before digging, which the handbook says raises yield by about 10 percent. To prepare: the thin reddish-brown bark contains hydrocyanic (prussic) acid, removed by peeling (a knife works better than a peeler), washing and cooking. 'Sweet' types contain only a little and are boiled as a vegetable; 'bitter' types contain more. Leaves can be boiled and eaten but never raw.
Neither source mentions cassava. FAO's general remark that root crops and tubers are grown less often and need special attention (p. 92) does not address a perennial shrub that takes most of a year to mature.
What this lesson doesn't cover yet
No fetched UF/IFAS document named cassava's plant family; left null.
No UF/IFAS pest or disease list for home-grown cassava was found (the production handbook's pesticide tables were not used).
Spacing and depth differ between the garden page (4 ft apart, 2 to 4 in deep) and the commercial handbook (2 ft apart, 3 to 4 in deep).
No home-garden planting dates outside Miami-Dade County were found.
Your county extension office and its Florida Master Gardeners can fill these in for your garden.