What issues should be noted when harvesting sweet potatoes?

Sweet potato is a vegetatively propagated vegetative body, with no obvious maturity standard or harvest period, but harvesting too early or too late affects the yield, seed retention, storage, processing and utilization, and crop rotation of sweet potatoes. Harvesting too early will significantly reduce the yield of sweet potatoes; harvesting too late, sweet potatoes are often affected by low-temperature chilling injury, are not resistant to storage, and the drying rate declines.

Therefore, sweet potatoes must be harvested at the right time.

The suitable harvest period for sweet potatoes should be determined according to climatic conditions, safe storage time, and the arrangement of the following crop. When the ground temperature is around 18°C, the weight increase of sweet potatoes is very small; when the ground temperature is around 15°C, sweet potatoes stop expanding; when the ground temperature is below 9°C for a long time, chilling injury will occur. Therefore, generally when the ground temperature is 18°C, harvesting and digging of sweet potatoes begins, and digging is completed before the killing frost. Spring sweet potatoes used for drying or those followed by planting winter @#@245@#@ are generally dug before Cold Dew; summer sweet potatoes used for seed retention are dug before Frost's Descent; sweet potatoes stored for eating are dug a little later, but must be completely harvested before the killing frost.

Soil that is too dry or too wet is unfavorable for sweet potato harvest. If too dry, the soil water content decreases, the ground temperature changes greatly, sweet potatoes are prone to chilling injury, and digging is not easy. If too wet, the soil water content is too high, sweet potatoes are not only difficult to dig, but also have high water content and are not resistant to storage after harvest. When the soil is too wet, the sweet potato vines should first be cut off, dried for a few days, and dug again after the soil is slightly dry.

Summer sweet potatoes used for seed retention should preferably be dug in the morning on a sunny day, dried in the field, and put into the cellar that afternoon; do not leave them in the field overnight to avoid chilling injury.

After sweet potatoes are dug, the tubers can be selected in the field, removing diseased, damaged, and water-soaked tubers, and stored separately according to different uses and varieties. From digging to storage, the number of times they are turned over should be minimized as much as possible, and care should be taken to handle, place, load, and transport them gently to avoid bruising the skin of the tubers.