Home › Edible Gardening › Article

Why must potatoes and sweet potatoes be stored in separate cellars?

Edible Gardening 0 views
Although sweet potatoes and potatoes are both tuber crops, they are indeed different. Their growing conditions and the suitable temperatures for storing their tubers are clearly different. When storing sweet potatoes, in order to prevent black spot disease, soft rot and other diseases from invading the tubers, the cellar temperature is generally first raised to 34°C-37°C with a relative humidity of around 85%, and kept there for about 4 days, so that the wounds caused to the tubers during digging can heal as quickly as possible and infection can be prevented; in production this is called high-temperature healing. After that, the cellar temperature is generally kept at 10°C-15°C with a relative humidity of

Although sweet potatoes and potatoes are both tuber crops, they are indeed different. Their growing conditions and the suitable temperatures for storing their tubers are clearly different.

When storing sweet potatoes, in order to prevent black spot disease, soft rot and other diseases from invading the tubers, the cellar temperature is generally first raised to 34°C-37°C with a relative humidity of around 85%, and kept there for about 4 days, so that the wounds caused to the tubers during digging can heal as quickly as possible and infection can be prevented; in production this is called high-temperature healing. After that, the cellar temperature is generally kept at 10°C-15°C with a relative humidity of 85%-90%, which keeps the sweet potatoes in a relatively stable dormant state. If the cellar temperature is below 9°C for too long, chilling injury will occur, weakening the storage quality of the tubers and making them prone to developing a hard core or rotting. If the cellar temperature is 3°C-6°C, chilling injury will appear after 6 days and then dry rot will occur. Of course, if the temperature is above 15°C, the respiration of the tubers will intensify, consuming large amounts of nutrients and water, reducing the weight of the tubers, and easily causing the spread of pathogens, leading to tuber rot or sprouting.

The most suitable cellar temperature during potato storage is 2°C-4°C. When the temperature is above 5°C, the respiration of the tubers is strong and water consumption is greater than dry matter consumption, causing the skin to wrinkle; especially after passing through the dormant period, the young buds in the buds' eyes of the tubers begin to sprout, and above 12°C the tubers sprout in large numbers. Once they sprout, a toxin called solanine is produced around the buds' eyes, which is harmful to humans and livestock and affects their appearance and edible quality. Therefore, for tubers that have sprouted, the tuber flesh around the buds' eyes must be dug out before they can be eaten. When the tubers have sprouted and turned green severely, they have to be thrown away entirely. As for the humidity in the cellar, potatoes are similar to sweet potatoes, with around 85%-90% being suitable; insufficient humidity will also cause wrinkling, affecting their edible and seed value. When humidity is high, mold easily develops, and may even cause the tubers to rot.

It can thus be seen that sweet potatoes and potatoes differ considerably in their temperature requirements during storage. If they are forced to be stored together, then accommodating the potatoes harms the sweet potatoes, and satisfying the sweet potatoes ruins the potatoes, and may even cause both to suffer.

Related Articles