When growing yams, it’s really important to keep an eye on diseases, especially viruses, since they can easily spread from plant to plant through insects or by using seed yams that are already infected. To reduce the risk of introducing diseases into your field, start with clean, disease-free seed yams and keep your field weed-free.

One way to manage viruses is by regularly checking your crops and getting rid of any plants that look sick before insects can spread the virus to healthy plants. Some signs to look out for include leaves with strange patterns, like mosaic, vein banding, mottling, or distorted shapes, as well as plants that look stunted.

Before planting, it’s a good idea to treat the yam setts to protect them from pests and diseases. Also, make sure your field is well-prepared so that water doesn’t collect in one spot, as that can lead to more nematode problems. Pests like nematodes, mealybugs, scale insects, and crickets can move from the field to storage, where they can keep damaging the yams. If not managed properly, these pests can end up back in the field when you plant again. So, it’s crucial to take steps to keep pests out of both your field and storage areas to maintain healthy yam crops.