Sweet potato planting technology and management

Sweet potatoes are a popular food ingredient that is grown extensively across China. However, to obtain abundant yields of high-quality sweet potatoes, it is not enough to have ideas alone, but also requires certain technical knowledge and practical experience. Mastering the correct planting methods and management techniques is crucial to improving the yield and quality of sweet potatoes. Let’s learn about sweet potato planting techniques and management together.

1. Cultivate strong potato seedlings

The key to high-yield sweet potatoes is to cultivate high-quality potato seedlings. Robust potato seedlings help to take root early, mature and produce potatoes early, and have stronger resistance to stress and faster growth rates. Choose a location that is sheltered from the wind, facing the sun, with convenient drainage and irrigation, and easy to manage as the seedbed. In the process of seedbed management, attention should be paid to the links such as seedling pruning, transplanting, fertilizing and promoting seedling growth, so as to cultivate young and strong seedlings with thick stems, short nodes, no diseases and pests, neat top leaves and dark green leaves.

Seeding: Select potato tubers that are of moderate size, uniform, free of pests and diseases, without wounds, and without cold damage as seed potatoes. The width of the seedling bed is controlled between 1 and 1.2 meters, and the length is adjusted according to actual needs. Every 50 kilograms of seed potatoes can provide 9,000 to 15,000 potato seedlings, enough to plant 3 to 4 acres of land. The average amount of seed potatoes used per acre is about 10 to 25 kilograms. The seeding time should be controlled about 100 days before transplanting.

Seedling raising: When the seedlings grow to 25 to 30 cm in length, they are transplanted and propagated, and the tops are pinched when the transplanted seedlings reach 6 to 10 nodes to promote branching.

Fertilization to promote strong seedlings: 5 to 8 days before the planned seedling collection period (before planting), apply an appropriate amount of quick-acting nitrogen fertilizer to cultivate young and strong seedlings. When the potato seedlings reach 25 to 30 cm in length, they should be harvested and planted in time.

2. Site selection, land preparation and ridge preparation

Site selection: For sweet potato planting, choose sandy loam or loam with medium or above fertility and convenient irrigation and drainage. The ideal soil should be loose, deep, nutrient-rich and have good air permeability.

Scientific fertilization: According to soil fertility, apply urea, general phosphorus and potassium sulfate reasonably. At the same time, priority is given to the use of farmyard manure, and the principle of "farmyard manure as the main, chemical fertilizer as the auxiliary, base fertilizer as the main, topdressing as the auxiliary" is followed.

Bed making: Bed making is beneficial to drainage and decomposition of organic matter, raising ground temperature and increasing the temperature difference between day and night, which is beneficial to the growth of sweet potatoes and nutrient accumulation. The bed spacing is generally 1.1 to 1.3 meters, the bed height is 0.3 to 0.4 meters, and the bed direction is east-west to optimize lighting conditions.

3. Planting

Choose top-strength seedlings for planting: Top-strength seedlings have apical advantage, grow robustly, have strong resistance to adversity, turn green quickly after planting, and take root early, which helps to increase yields.

Field planting: Choose the appropriate planting method based on land conditions, groundwater levels and seasonal rainfall. Pay attention to the depth when planting to ensure that each section of the potato seedlings is in a loose and well-ventilated soil layer.

Reasonable density planting: 3,000 to 4,000 sweet potatoes per mu in autumn and 4,000 to 5,000 sweet potatoes per mu in winter. Planting in ridges helps increase yields. The ridges are 30 to 40 cm high and two rows are planted in each ridge.

4. Field Management

Management during the rooting and seedling stage: focus on checking the seedlings and filling in the gaps, keeping the soil moist, and improving the survival rate.

Management during the branching and tuber-forming period: control vine growth to promote branching and irrigate at the right time.

Management from the stage of full stem and leaf growth to tuber enlargement: maintain appropriate soil moisture and prevent pests.

Management from tuber swelling stage to before harvest: focus on accumulating starch , applying vine-growing fertilizer at the right time, and clearing ditches and draining water.

5. Harvest at the right time

Sweet potato harvesting should start when the temperature drops to around 15℃ and be completed at around 12℃ to avoid frost damage.

The above is an introduction to some key points in sweet potato cultivation and management. You can refer to them based on actual conditions. If you do these well, you can effectively improve the yield and quality of sweet potatoes.