How to Grow Sweet Potatoes as a Weight-Loss Food? With Disease and Pest Control Methods

As a coarse grain, the sweet potato is one of the favorites of many people who are trying to lose weight. Besides being suitable for eating more of during a weight-loss period, the sweet potato also has a lot of nutritional value. For example, it strengthens the spleen and stimulates the appetite, fights cancer and satisfies hunger, and prevents diabetes. So what are the growing methods for sweet potatoes? How many sweet potato disease and pest control methods are there? Let us take a look below:

I. Growing methods for sweet potatoes

1. Seed selection

Although sweet potato growing looks simple, selecting good seed is also the basic condition for a high sweet potato yield, and at the same time it is the basic requirement for rooting and sprouting. When selecting seed we generally choose larger sweet potatoes. First we observe whether the sweet potato seed roots have any defects, or whether any part has been bitten by insects or rats. If not, then we continue to look at whether the sweet potato has many sprouting points and whether its vitality is vigorous. Basically that is enough.

2. Sowing

When sowing, soak the sweet potato seed roots in a Duolingjun solution for about ten minutes. This can effectively prevent some diseases, and at the same time can also prevent the seed roots from being stolen and eaten by rats before they sprout. Then it is time to sow. When sowing we must distinguish the head from the tail, otherwise the shoots will not grow out later. If you really cannot tell them apart, you can also place them diagonally. Finally, cover the seed roots with a layer of withered grass and rotten wood, then cover with a thin layer of soil. If you are worried that the temperature has not reached the requirement, we can cover with a layer of plastic film on top. When the sweet potato shoots grow to thirty or forty cm we cut them off, then cut them into small sections with three leaves per section, and they are ready for cuttings. When making cuttings, generally a spacing of about thirty cm per plant is enough.

3. Fertilizing

After planting, the first fertilizing is needed. This fertilizing is mainly to make the sweet potato cuttings grow new roots, so generally human manure and urine water is applied. The second fertilizing is after the sweet potatoes have survived, because the growth is uneven, so they look irregular. This time it is mainly to even out the seedlings, and generally urea is used. The third fertilizing is the seedling-lifting fertilizer, also urea, but a little compound fertilizer needs to be added. Finally there is the most important fruit-strengthening fertilizer, generally potassium fertilizer and boron fertilizer.

4. Vine training

To make later harvesting convenient and to keep unnecessary branches and leaves from consuming nutrients, we need to train the sweet potato vines in the field, sorting the sweet potato vines in the field in one direction and letting them grow in one direction. This way, harvesting later will be much easier. Secondly, when training the vines, just pick off some of the excess branches and leaves.

5. Disease prevention

What generally harms sweet potato growth are leaf roller worms, aphids, white grubs and field rats. Leaf roller worms and aphids generally harm sweet potato leaves and affect photosynthesis, while white grubs and field rats generally like to eat the sweet potatoes in the field, and they will bite and damage the sweet potatoes one by one. Generally, for pests that harm branches and leaves, spraying with trichlorfon solution is enough, but for things like field rats the effect of spraying is not great, so trapping is generally used: place field rats' favorite food in the field mixed with rat poison to trap and kill them.

6. Harvesting

Harvesting generally comes around September and October. First we cut off the sweet potato shoots, then dig out the sweet potatoes. The dug-out sweet potatoes generally need to be stored in a cellar, otherwise the water content is easily lost and they rot easily.

II. Sweet potato disease and pest control methods

1. Control and prevention of physiological diseases: due to factors such as soil nutrient deficiency, physiological nutrient deficiency, and poor environment (too dry, too wet, sunscald, high temperature, low temperature), various physiological diseases are caused, such as deficiency symptoms, sunscald, aging, weak growth, and wilting.

Control methods: choose resistant varieties or insensitive varieties; choose vigorous and robust varieties; water appropriately to keep the soil surface and plants dry; maintain appropriate density; keeping the planting plot in rotation can reduce occurrence.

2. For non-infectious diseases, use sulfur and copper preparations for control. For bacterial diseases, such as soft rot, water appropriately while watering, keeping the soil surface and plants dry. For fungal diseases, such as downy mildew, rust and other soil-borne diseases, adopt film mulching and drip irrigation measures to keep the environment dry, and they can be controlled.

For viral diseases, control them by controlling aphids.