In which month do we start growing sweet potato seedlings?

Sweet potatoes are a common crop and are grown in many areas. As the saying goes, a year's plan begins with spring, and spring is the season for sowing. So when does sweet potato seedlings start to grow? Let’s learn more about it below.

In which month do we start growing sweet potato seedlings?

The time for growing sweet potato seedlings is generally around the Waking of Insects, which means that they are all grown from mid-February to mid-April every year. The spring sweet potato tuber seedlings in areas south of the Huaihe River are generally raised after mid-February, such as Hubei, Hunan, Zhejiang, Fujian, Yunnan, Guangdong, Hainan, Guizhou, Taiwan, Jiangxi, etc.; the spring sweet potato tuber seedlings in areas north of the Huaihe River are generally raised in March-early April, such as Heilongjiang, Jilin, Liaoning, Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Ningxia, Shanxi, Shandong and other regions.

Method for growing sweet potato seedlings

Sweet potato seedlings are generally grown using tubers, which is a more commonly used seedling growing method.

1. Choose sweet potato seeds

Use potato tubers that have been well stored in potato cellars over the winter. The potatoes should be of uniform size, bright and smooth skin, free from pests and diseases, and without wounds. The weight of a single potato should be between 100 and 200 grams. Those that have been damaged by cold or soaked in water should not be used as seed potatoes.

2. Disinfection

Exposing the selected sweet potato seeds to the sun for a day can kill the germs. Then prepare 0.1% potassium permanganate aqueous solution or 1000 times diluted carbendazim, soak the sweet potato pieces in the solution for about 30-50 minutes, then take them out and place the potato seeds on the seedling bed.

3. Choose the nursery bed

Choose a plot of land that is east-west oriented, sheltered from the wind and facing the sun, and has never been planted with potatoes. The seedling bed is made on a flat, dry and well-drained plot of land. The size of the seedling bed is determined by the sweet potato pieces, about 1 to 1.2 meters wide. A sunny bed is made on it and covered with plastic film . The seedling bed is covered with fully decomposed farmyard manure and a mat of about 8 centimeters is spread on top, which is then disinfected with a carbendazim solution.

4. Place the seed potatoes

After making the seedling bed, spread a layer of organic fertilizer underneath and keep the water on the seedling bed dry and wet. Arrange the seed potatoes horizontally, vertically, and diagonally. After arranging them, separate them by size, with large potatoes placed densely and small potatoes placed sparsely. Then spray 500 times diluted carbendazim on it for disinfection, cover it with a layer of ground film to keep it moist, and cover the greenhouse film.

5. Period management

The temperature and humidity of the seedling bed during the seedling raising period, the temperature of the cold bed seedling bed should be above 16 degrees and below 35 degrees. As the temperature rises above 16 degrees, the higher the temperature, the more conducive it is to germination. Once it is below 15 degrees, it may cause cold damage, making it difficult for seedlings to emerge. Temperature is the key to the success of sweet potato seedling cultivation. The required nutrients are obtained from the sweet potato tubers, but proper nutrient supplementation will help the sweet potato seedlings become stronger. Therefore, maintaining a suitable seedbed humidity of about 80% is beneficial to the growth of sweet potato seedlings, because as the seedlings grow larger, they require more water.

That’s it