Cassava stems is very important in my village and almost parts of Africa because the stems is what's used for the planting so that the stem will germinate and produce cassava tuber. Africa is known for hard labor so we need energy given food like cassava.
Many times, Afikpo in Ebonyi state, we don't buy cassava stems because we believe that our continuous planting of the stems within our village is enough for other people to cut for their own new planting. Every farmer within Afikpo is allowed to enter another farmer cassava farm and cut cassava stems for their own use. The only policy there is that if you cut a cassava stems freely from a farm, it's not allowed to be sold for money. If there's in any way seen selling a cassava stems acquired from another person's farm freely, the person will be held accountable.
Most recent time, the farming of cassava has increased due to the present hardship and hunger facing all corners. The situation has left many people going to people's cassava farm to cut the stems which most of them ended cutting even the one that's not mature to be cut. It's not every cassava stems that's due for cutting but only those that's mature enough so that when a farmer cut because it's mature already it'll have the strength to grow back but if the one not mature is cut, from the place it was cut from will surely die.
It's now very difficult for a new cassava farmer to see where she could cut a free cassava stems due to increasing cassava farming. This has made many of us to learn how to preserve cassava stems for a very long period of time before the usage period.
The best way to preserve a cassava stems is by cutting the stems from a farm, remove the leaves from the stems so that the leaf will not dry the stems since it's no longer growing from the soil. As we remove the cassava leaves from the stem we'll carry the stems to cold weather environment. Remove the weeds of grass there. Lay the cassava stems. To preserve using this method it's best to have a nearby river that usually enters the place the cassava stems was layed so that it'll help to keep the cassava stems alive.
Another good way to preserve cassava stems is to put them directly to the soil as if we have planted it. This method is only good if the time we're going to plant the cassava stem is near so that as we put them inside the soil the will not over grow. Transplanting is involved in this method of cassava preservation because when have finally cultivated a new farm, we can easily transplant the cassava stems.
If cassava stems are not preserved where they'll be receiving water from time to time, surely sun or dry weather conditions will dry up the cassava stems thereby making it to die and become an ordinary wood that could be used for cooking.