When should sweet potatoes be planted and seedled?

Sweet potato is an important food crop and cash crop in China. It has the advantages of high yield, rich nutrition, strong adaptability to the environment and high efficiency, and is therefore favored by a large number of growers. So when is the best time to plant sweet potatoes and raise seedlings? Let’s learn more about it below.

When should sweet potatoes be planted and seedled?

The time for sweet potato seedling cultivation needs to be determined according to the local climate. Usually, seedlings can be grown in mid-to-late February in areas south of the Yangtze River, but in northern regions, due to the low temperature, the seedlings can be postponed to March or April.

How to grow sweet potato seedlings?

1. Seed potato selection

Selecting good seed potatoes is the basis for cultivating strong seedlings. For seed potatoes, you should choose tubers that are bright in color, free of pests and diseases, intact, and of moderate size, with a tuber weight of about 300-400 grams. Genetically modified varieties must not be used.

2. Seedbed preparation

The seedbed should be located in a sunny, flat area that is sheltered from the wind and preferably faces east-west to avoid the impact of north or south winds on the seedbed. The bed soil should be loose, fertile, pest-free sandy soil with a thickness of about 5 cm. At the same time, add appropriate organic fertilizer to improve the quality and quantity of sweet potato seedlings.

3. Seed potato processing

Before sowing and raising seedlings, the seed potatoes need to be disinfected first. They can be treated with warm water at 50 degrees Celsius for 10 minutes. Secondly, soaking in carbendazim or other medicines is also effective. Of course, you can also sprinkle the medicine on the seedbed appropriately. In this way, seedling diseases can be reduced, and they are more likely to survive and thrive after transplanting.

4. Sowing and seedling raising

The furrow sowing method is generally adopted. Dig small trenches (30 cm wide and 20 cm deep) on the seedbed, with a distance of 80 cm between the trench centers, and plant the sweet potato roots on both sides of the trenches at a spacing of 20 cm. Generally, 12 plants are planted per square meter.

5. Collect seedlings at the right time

When the potato seedlings grow to early April, they are about 40 days old and meet the standards for strong seedlings, so they should be harvested in time. Otherwise, the potato seedlings will be crowded and the ventilation and light transmission will be poor, which will cause the lower leaves and seedlings to turn yellow, which will not only affect the quality of the potato seedlings, but also reduce the number of seedlings in the next crop.

In general, the time for planting and raising sweet potato seedlings is mainly concentrated in spring, but the specific time is affected by many factors, such as planting environment, sweet potato variety, etc. Therefore, farmers should carry out scientific seedling cultivation according to local actual conditions to ensure high yields of sweet potato planting .