What to Do About Rotting Seed Pieces and Dead Seedlings in Yam Planting? Causes and Solutions

During yam cultivation, rotting seed pieces and dead seedlings often occur. This is due to growers' lack of experience or non-standard planting techniques. When this happens, yam yields decrease year after year. So what are the causes of dead seedlings and rotting seed pieces in yam? Let's take a look together.

1. Poor quality of seed pieces

The quality of yam seed pieces is absolutely key to uniform, strong seedlings and high or low yields. Using injured or undried seed pieces as seed easily leads to slow emergence and weak seedlings, and in severe cases can also cause rotting seed pieces and dead seedlings. When freshly wounded seed pieces are sown, the rate of rotting seed pieces and dead seedlings reaches over 50%. Therefore, directly sowing yam seed pieces with wounds or without sufficient drying is an important cause of rotting seed pieces and dead seedlings in yams.

Solution: Determine the number of seed pieces to keep based on the yam planting area. When harvesting seed pieces, try to leave as few wounds as possible. Before planting, dip the wounds in lime powder or carbendazim powder and dry them thoroughly. Store them properly and strictly prevent freezing damage. Sun-drying seed pieces not only speeds up wound healing but also prevents pathogen invasion, promotes seed piece activity, and enables adventitious buds to sprout and grow into robust young shoots.

2. Low temperature and high humidity

When yams are sown and emerging, there is often more rainfall, soil humidity is relatively high, and prolonged low temperatures with little sunlight are important causes of rotting seed pieces and dead seedlings in yams. In addition, the lower the temperature and the greater the rainfall, the more severe the rotting seed pieces and dead seedlings become.

Solution: When there are no consecutive rainy days 7-10 days before yam sowing, this is the optimal sowing period for yams. At the same time, open furrows and form ridges 10 days before sowing, which can raise soil temperature and reduce the causes of rotting seed pieces and dead seedlings.

3. Sowing too deep

In surveys, among fields with rotting seed pieces and dead seedlings, fields where seed pieces were buried too deep accounted for about 65%, indicating that under adverse weather conditions of rainy, high humidity and low temperature with little sunlight, sowing too deep is also one of the causes of large-scale rotting seed pieces and dead seedlings.

Solution: Practice has proven that the suitable sowing depth for yams is 8-10 cm. If sowing is too shallow, when encountering dry weather and sowing according to soil moisture conditions, it is not conducive to germination; but if sowing is too deep, under low temperature with little sunlight or continuous rainy weather, rotting seed pieces and dead seedlings easily occur.

4. Variety differences

Different yam varieties differ in the degree of rotting seed pieces and dead seedlings. Among the main cultivated varieties, the rotting seed pieces and dead seedlings of vegetable yam are significantly more severe than those of rice yam. Therefore, when selecting varieties for cultivation, be sure to choose varieties that are not prone to rotting seed pieces and dead seedlings according to local conditions.

The above is an introduction to the causes and solutions of rotting seed pieces and dead seedlings in yams. We hope it can help you. If you want to learn more related knowledge, please stay tuned to us.