Scott

I chop mine down after I take the fruit.
Bring it down to about a foot so the fluids will go back down instead of absorbing.
After a few months, I take it to the ground and cut some of the corm, if not all of it, out of the ground. Then I normally xplant the corm in the field by my work hehehe or announce free corm on craigslist.com and someone calls then takes them away.

Abns -
I do feel the plant still contributes to the 'energy' of the mat for a while through the sun it absorbs.
My contribution to the mat is to make space, open the air for smaller ones and fill open hole with fresh compost and maybe a few catfish.

__________________