Taro (Colocasia esculenta) :: Botany

Taro (Colocasia esculenta)Breakthrough improvements in the major grain plays take a shit increased world food production dramatically during the finishing cardinal seven years. The advancements in grain production, however, have not brought significant benefits to areas where free radical crops are the major staples. Therefore, more emphasis should be directed toward such(prenominal) root crops as taro, which is a staple food in some(prenominal) developing nations of Asia, Africa, and the Pacific. Taro (Colocasia esculenta (L.) Schott), a member of the Araceae family, is an ancient crop grown end-to-end the humid tropics for its edible corms and leaves, as well(p) as for its traditional uses. In the Pacific, the crop attained supreme greatness in the diets of the inhabitants. Quantitatively it has become, and still remains, as the most important crop. today the plant is widely used throughout the world, in Africa, Asia, the West Indies, and southeasterly America. Taro is of great importance in many places such as the Caribbean, Hawaii, the Solomons, American Samoa, West Samoa, the Philippines, Fiji, Sri Lanka, India, Nigeria, Ind unmatchablesia, New Hebrides, Tonga, Niue, Papua, New Guinea, Egypt, and new(prenominal)s. In these areas many great deal depend heavily upon taro as a staple food. to a greater extent recently, taro was introduced by the U. S. Department of Agriculture to the southern United States as a supplement to potatoes. Taro constituted the staff of life for the Hawaiians when victor Cook arrived in the islands in 1778. At that time an estimated three ampere-second thousand tribe in the islands lived chiefly on poi (a fermented or saucy taro paste), sweet potato, fish, seaweed, and a few green vegetables and fruits. They used no grain or animal milk in their diet, and animal proteins were a rarity. Yet the good physique and excellent teeth of the Polynesian people testified to an adequate diet. Taro has played a similar role i n the diet of the Melanesians and Micronesians, who ate boiled or baked corms and the leaves of taro. Young taro leaves are used as a main vegetable throughout Melanesia and Polynesia. They are boiled or covered with coconut cream, wrapped in banana or breadfruit leaves and cooked on hot stone. Thus, taro is one of the few major staple foods where both the leaf and the underground split are equally important in the human diet. Within the last sixty years, investigators have confirmed the superiority of taro over other starchy staples.