How to Fertilize Sweet Potatoes in the Late Stage? A Detailed Guide to the Latest Methods

As a very common food crop in our country, sweet potatoes are basically grown in every region of China. When growing sweet potatoes, fertilization work is very important and is the key to ensuring a high sweet potato yield. When fertilizing, you should apply fertilizer reasonably according to the growth stage of the sweet potatoes. So once sweet potatoes enter the late growth stage, how should they be fertilized? Today, the editor will give you a brief introduction. Let's take a look below!

1. Topdressing during the bulking stage

When the tubers of sweet potatoes are bulking in the late stage, this is the most critical topdressing period. At this time, the soil around the sweet potato roots will begin to crack, and the sweet potato's demand for fertilizer is also at its greatest. Many people apply a large amount of fertilizer at the beginning and then stop fertilizing in the later stage. In fact, this is wrong, because sweet potatoes are prone to malnutrition during late growth. At this time, apply an appropriate amount of compound fertilizer and organic fertilizer to provide sufficient nutrients for the bulking of the sweet potatoes. Then pay attention to weed control to avoid weeds competing with the sweet potatoes for growth nutrients.

2. Foliar topdressing

In the late growth stage of sweet potatoes, the absorption capacity of the roots is relatively weak. So we should also pay attention to foliar topdressing work and choose fertilizers according to the planting area, sweet potato growth, and so on. For example, if it is a hilly or plain area with weak growth and signs of premature aging, then an appropriate amount of urea solution can be sprayed. If the soil fertility is high and the growth is vigorous, then an appropriate amount of monopotassium phosphate or superphosphate can be sprayed. For normal fields, urea and monopotassium phosphate can be combined, about once a week for about three weeks. Each foliar fertilizer spraying amount per mu should be kept at about 80-90 kg, preferably in the evening on a sunny day.

3. Precautions

When fertilizing, we should control the nutrient ratio of the fertilizer according to the fertilizer requirements of sweet potatoes. For example, sweet potatoes have the highest demand for potassium fertilizer, followed by phosphate fertilizer, and finally nitrogen fertilizer. Therefore, when fertilizing in the late stage, we should pay attention to giving priority to phosphate fertilizer, combined with an appropriate amount of phosphate fertilizer, and apply less or no nitrogen fertilizer. Then when spraying foliar fertilizer, you can use Yijia Ning high-potassium foliar fertilizer specially for sweet potatoes. If using drip irrigation, then water-soluble fertilizer should be the main type to ensure that the fertilizer can reach the roots with the water. After fertilizing, also pay attention to covering with soil and watering.

Then also pay attention to the vine lifting work for sweet potatoes. Many farmers like to turn the vines in the late stage of sweet potatoes, but in fact this is very unfavorable to the growth of sweet potatoes. Because this will hinder the nutrient absorption of sweet potato leaves, affect the bulking of sweet potatoes, and cause reduced yield. Therefore, we should mainly focus on lifting the vines. Lifting the vines is to break the roots, transport the nutrients produced by the leaves of the sweet potato plants to the tubers, and increase the sweet potato yield.

The above is a brief introduction to how to fertilize sweet potatoes in the late stage. That's all for today's introduction. This article is for reference only, and we hope it can help everyone!