Harvesting Arrowroot Plant (Maranta arundinacea)

Arrowroot Harvest

Maranta arundinacea or commonly called as arrowroot plant, it is an easy ad prolific crop to grow. I like this plant because it looks good in the garden with its tropical large leaves and it is also productive and you can eat the rhizomes, it is medicinal, ornamental and food at the same time.

I planted a small tiny rhizome in a small plant pot and left it to itself and within few mounts, it overtook that pot so after a year or so I repotted it to another grow bag. Then again it was growing like crazy with the full sun even though every noon it wood wilt and I used to water every evening. But I didn't know when to harvest it, so I did some research and found that the plant will turn yellow and will die to the ground within 10-12 mounts of planting and then the rhizomes will be ready for harvest, but my arrowroot was growing for 2 years with no signs of yellowing.

Arrowroot leaves can be fed to livestock

I decided to harvest the arrowroot despite all those claims on the internet. I was thinking it won't be so hard to dig up arrowroot from a container but my perception wasn't right. It was a bit harder than I thought. So first, I took the mulch which was around the plant and then started digging around the plant and moving as much soil as much as possible, then I moved the plant back and forth and also pulling it upward at the same time after some time it came up a bit, then I was shaking the plant as much as I can and pulling it, as a result, the plant came out with some rhizomes with it, I harvested those rhizomes, set it aside and dug up other rhizomes, this wasn't so hard at all.

The harvest wasn't satisfying, I had a huge plant, so I expected huge rhizomes. I don't know what went wrong everything was looking good, the soil was good, loose soil with lots of compost, but I noticed that the root didn't go deep enough, I think that's because I watered it every day and not allowing roots to search for water...may be.

Cover the Arrowroot Plant

Then I planted the plant, rhizomes removed and it still had some roots around it. I separated the clump into 2-3 clumps and planted it separately. so that it can use the whole container efficiently. I also chopped off the leaves down to four to five inches from the soil surface. Then I coved the plant with an old laundry bag so the sun doesn't directly hit the plant and the plant also can grow without any stress.