How to grow sweet potatoes for high yield?

Sweet potato , also known as sweet potato, is a high-yield and highly adaptable food crop that is grown in many areas of China. So how to grow sweet potatoes to get high yields? Let’s learn more about it below.

1. Choose the soil

Although sweet potatoes have a strong ability to adapt to the environment, they have very strict requirements on the soil. Although overly sticky soil has a strong ability to retain water and fertilizer, it is easy to become compacted, and the poor soil permeability is not conducive to the expansion of the tubers. When planting sweet potatoes, it is best to use soil with a deep soil layer, loose structure, rich organic matter content, and good drainage and ventilation. The soil should have a large porosity to meet the oxygen requirements of the potato tubers for expansion.

2. Deeply cultivate the soil

Before transplanting potato vines, the soil should be deeply plowed, with the depth of soil not less than 30 centimeters. Loosening the deep soil is conducive to the full expansion of the potato tubers. Experienced farmers will adopt "high ridge cultivation", which can increase the depth of the soil layer, prevent sweet potatoes from being waterlogged, facilitate later vine turning, and increase the temperature difference between day and night in the soil, which is very helpful for improving the yield and quality of sweet potatoes.

3. Planting method

The most commonly used methods for sweet potato planting are flat planting and 45° inclined planting. If the soil is loose and fertile, flat planting can be used. Dig a 5-7 cm deep trench, place the sweet potato seedlings flat in it, bend the bottom of the seedlings slightly to make it easier for the roots to penetrate the soil. Leave three leaves exposed on the upper part and cover the rest with soil. Oblique planting is more suitable for hilly areas, dry land , and relatively arid places, and is relatively drought-resistant. Oblique insertion means inserting the seedlings at a 45° angle, leaving 5 to 10 centimeters above the ground, and then sealing the soil tightly.

4. Plant as shallowly as possible

There is a good agricultural proverb that says, "If you plant sweet potatoes shallowly, you will get gold ingots; if you plant them deeply, you will only get a handful of weeds." It means that when planting sweet potato seedlings, it is better to plant them shallowly, and the depth should be kept at 5 cm.

5. Turn the vines regularly

Sweet potato vines will grow many "adventitious roots" during their growth process. These adventitious roots will absorb a large amount of water and nutrients from the soil for the growth of stems and leaves. During the growth process of sweet potatoes, we need to turn the vines to destroy the "adventitious roots" on the vines to ensure that the nutrients in the main roots are concentrated, which is conducive to the expansion of the tubers.

6. Scientific fertilization

As the old saying goes, "The success of crops depends on fertilizer." When fertilizing sweet potatoes, do not use nitrogen fertilizer alone, as it will easily lead to excessive growth of sweet potato stems and leaves, resulting in the phenomenon of only growing stems and leaves but not producing tubers. Apply more farmyard manure as base fertilizer, which can improve the soil and make it looser. Sweet potatoes grown with farmyard manure will have better yield and taste. During the planting process, potassium fertilizer can be applied appropriately.

That’s it