When Is the Best Time to Plant Sweet Potatoes? An Analysis of the Latest Planting Times
1. When Is the Best Time to Plant Sweet Potatoes
Sweet potatoes are best planted in spring each year. If you want to raise seedlings in early spring and harvest sweet potatoes ahead of time, you can raise the seedlings in a hotbed or a small plastic arch tunnel, and transplant and set them out once the sweet potato seedlings grow 2 true leaves.
2. How to Plant Sweet Potatoes
1. Soil Preparation and Fertilization
Sweet potatoes like to grow in deep, well-drained sandy loam soil. During the period when the plant's storage roots are growing and swelling, they need an appropriate amount of nitrogen fertilizer and more phosphorus and potassium fertilizer. Be careful not to apply too much fertilizer, otherwise the soil will be too fertile, which can easily cause the sweet potato stems and leaves to grow excessively while the fleshy roots are instead less likely to swell. Usually before planting, you can deeply plow the soil 20-25cm and apply 5000kg of barnyard manure and 25-50kg of compound fertilizer per mu.
2. Sowing and Raising Seedlings
Sweet potato seeds are relatively hard. To improve the germination rate of the seeds, you can soak the seeds to speed up germination before sowing. Put the seeds in clean water and soak them for 10-12h, then take them out and place them in a moist paper towel until most of the seeds show white sprouts, then sow them. Usually around Grain Rain, sow the seeds in holes in the field, placing 1-2 seeds in each hole, with a row spacing of 50-60cm and a plant spacing of 35cm for each sweet potato.
⟦NL>3. Management After Planting
After the sweet potatoes are planted, you should thin and fill in the seedlings as they grow. Once the sweet potato seedlings emerge evenly, apply a top dressing of manure water once. When the soil is slightly dry, carry out intertillage, weeding and earthing up. When the main vine of the sweet potato grows to 18-24 leaves, pinch off the growing tip. During the sweet potato growing period, you should also remove the side vines and keep only the main vine. Usually, sweet potatoes can be harvested 5-6 months after sowing.