Harvesting Yams from a Wall of Dirt

Описание: The core discovery for a curious mind.


In the video, a farmer is standing in a pre-dug deep trench, manually harvesting Chinese yams. This is a specialized, labor-intensive harvesting method for deep-rooted tuber crops.

🌱 Chinese Yam: A long, edible tuber that grows vertically deep into the ground. It is brittle and easily broken during digging.
🌱 Harvesting Trench: A deep trench is pre-dug by machine along one side of the yam row. The purpose of this step is not to dig out the yams directly, but to expose them from the side within the soil wall, creating a workspace for the subsequent manual operation.
🌱 Lateral Loosening: The farmer uses a long-handled, narrow-headed tool (like a pry bar or specialized spade) to carefully pry and scrape away the soil around the yam's perimeter. The key to this step is to loosen the soil, not to dig forcefully, in order to release the pressure on the yam.
🌱 Manual Extraction: Once the surrounding soil is sufficiently loosened, the farmer grabs the upper part of the yam by hand and carefully pulls it out of the soil wall intact.

Purpose of this process:
This is a specialized agricultural technique designed to ensure product integrity.

🌱 Preventing Breakage: This is the core purpose. The traditional top-down digging method would almost certainly cause the long, slender yams to break. Lateral extraction allows the entire tuber to be removed intact.
🌱 Increasing Commercial Value: Intact, undamaged yams have a much higher market value than broken ones.
🌱 Accommodating Crop Varieties: This method makes it possible to cultivate superior yam varieties that grow particularly deep and long.