White yam is propagated through tubers. Select medium size tubers weighing at least 250-300 gram. About 1000-1200 kg of seed material is required to cover one acre of land.

Seed tubers are normally planted during the later part of the dry season (March-April) and start sprouting with the onset of pre-monsoon showers.

Plough or dig the land to a depth of 15-20 cm. Prepare mounds at a spacing of 90 X 90 cm incorporating cattle manure @ 1 kg per mound.

Plant the whole tuber, one in each mound and cover completely with soil. Mulch the mounds to maintain optimum temperature and moisture.

Lime or dolomite has to be applied in acid soils two weeks ahead of fertilizer application.

The first split of fertilizer has to be applied at the time when 50 % of the sets are sprouted.

In mini-sett technique, clean and healthy yam tubers weighing about 1 kg are cut into cylindrical (disc-like) pieces, each about 5 cm thick.

From each such piece, 2-4 small pieces (30 gram) could be obtained by cutting the disc longitudinally or along the two perpendicular diameters. Such a piece is called a “minisett”.

The minisetts are then spread out under light shade for an hour with cut surface facing up before planting them in the nursery seedbeds.

The minisett takes 2-3 weeks for sprouting. At this stage, they are transplanted to the main field at a spacing of 50 cm on ridges taken 1 m apart.