Sweet potato vine turning to control excessive growth not working? Lifting the vines plus a growth regulator is the right answer

When I was little, my family grew sweet potatoes, and we often had to turn the vines under the blazing sun, especially when it rained. After a rain, the first thing we did was hurry out to turn the sweet potato vines. Why turn perfectly good sweet potato vines?

Turning sweet potato vines is actually a means of preventing the vines from growing too vigorously and becoming leggy. That is because if the sweet potato vines grow too vigorously, it leads to an unreasonable supply of nutrients. The sweet potato vines also tend to produce small sweet potato tubers, and turning the vines can reduce the formation of small tubers. However, the method of turning vines to control excessive growth is no longer much used today.

That is because many sweet potato varieties today are short-vine sweet potatoes, whose stems and vines grow to only about one meter at most, unlike the older sweet potato vines that would grow to two or three meters long. For this kind of short-vine sweet potato variety, there is no need to turn the vines.

In addition, turning sweet potato vines very easily damages the vines, disrupts the normal growth of the sweet potato, and affects the growth of the sweet potato vines and their nutrient supply. This not only fails to increase the sweet potato yield but also tends to reduce it.

How should vines be turned in a better way?

I personally do not recommend turning sweet potato vines, for the reasons already mentioned above. Here I will mainly talk about lifting sweet potato vines, which can achieve the same effect as turning them. Lifting sweet potato vines requires taking into overall consideration the growth condition of the sweet potatoes, the weather conditions, the sweet potato variety, and so on. Generally, when there is more rainy weather, the vines are lifted relatively more often, and long-vine sweet potato varieties that grow more vigorously need to be lifted more often.

For short-vine sweet potato varieties, the vines can be lifted less often or not at all. Generally, doing it two to three times during the sweet potato growing period is enough, and for the sweet potato plots mentioned above that do not need much vine lifting, generally lifting once is enough. Once the sweet potatoes enter the later stage of growth, the vine lifting work can be stopped.

When lifting the vines, be careful not to damage the sweet potato stems. Lift the sweet potato vines up about ten centimeters, then put them back down. In addition, when lifting the vines, you can combine it with topdressing, weeding, and watering to promote the growth of the sweet potato tubers.

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