Sweet white potato vine are for sure one of the most misunderstood vegetables . Often disoriented with yams , usually thought of as just a vacation - dinner side dish ( never mind the degrading marshmallow accompaniment ) , dulcet potato are frequently refer to as “ loose menage plants for child to grow in their classroom . ” Hummph ! Somebody call for to rent a public relations rep for this vegetable and sing the congratulations of one of the most versatile and nutrient veg in the world .
Sweet Potatoes vs. Yams
yam plant and sweet-smelling potatoes are not synonymous . actual yams are native to Africa , while gratifying Irish potato are native to the United States . ( Actually , the vegetable ’s most ancient ancestors came from South America . ) People say the confusedness between sweet white potato and yam started when African slaves used their word for African eatable roots , “ nyami , ” to describe the edible roots that were aboriginal to North America . But while both sweet potatoes and yams are eatable roots , there are many differences between the two crops .
yam are a common crop in many role of the world , and although democratic in Africa , the Caribbean and Pacific islands , they are almost never grown in the United States . They are monocot ( pot ) of the Lily mob and the genusDioscorea . sweet-smelling potato are dicot ( broad - leafed plants ) of the Morning Glory family and the genusIpomoea . Yam tubers , which mature up to 8 feet long and weigh 100 pounds , are generally large than sweet potatoes , which average out less than 1 foundation in duration and consider less than 1 pound each .
yam are juiceless , buckram and far less nutritious than sweet tater . The fighting ingredient for many birth - control pills is derived from yam . sweetened potato have no such effect .
A governance labeling formula that allows some sweet potatoes to be label as yams came about when orange - flesh sweet potatoes were first insert in the fifties . Marketers in Louisiana , where the orange - fleshed potpourri were first grow , wanted to distinguish them from the traditional yellow or blanched - fleshed types , then grown on the East Coast . The USDA was amenable and now allows the orange varieties of sweet murphy to be label as yam plant , though that label must also turn back somewhere , at least in small print , the words “ odoriferous potato . ” In general usage , include most U.S. cookbooks , the name yams and sweet potatoes are interchangeable , and the orange - flesh smorgasbord are the most popular type for home cookery .
Nutritional Value
Sweet potato are an amazingly nutritive vegetable . A intermediate - sized sweet potato is about fat - free , cholesterin - free , atomic number 11 - free and provides more than the recommended day-to-day allowance of vitamin A , along with high layer of protein , fibre , complex carbohydrates , folic Lucy in the sky with diamonds , K , Ca , Mg , iron , copper , thiamine , riboflavin , niacin , beta carotene , and vitamin 100 , E and B6 .
In fact , many claim the sweet potato is the undivided most nutritious veggie grow on the planet . During the first two century of European settlement in North America , sweet potatoes were prized by colonists and European royalty alike , prescribed by doctors as a stark food for children , and highly valued by mariners who were implicated about scurvy and food storage .
Although most nutritionary computation are base upon the mensuration of cooked pulp , the eatable skins of sweet potatoes are extremely nutritive and are eaten with ebullience in many households . The cutis does in fact contain even higher amounts of many of the sweet potato ’s fabled nutritional element , such as genus Beta carotene .
Sweet Potato Varieties
There are two principal types of sweet-smelling tater : juiceless flesh and moist flesh . In oecumenical , the older smorgasbord on the East Coast are of the icteric , juiceless - material body type , whereas the new varieties grow in Louisiana are of the orangish - chassis , moist type .
Beauregard is the prevalent assortment arise in Louisiana and will bring about acceptable yields over a broad mountain chain of grease types . Another democratic variety of the moist - fleshed type is the Centennial , which was also developed in Louisiana .
The Jersey and Jewel sweet - tater varieties are representative of the drier yellow - fleshed type , and are still commonly grown in North Carolina and other eastern areas . In the 1960s , California growers faced a serious computer virus trouble called Russet Crack disease . The University of California , Davis , set about a breeding program and now provides virus - free blood to agriculturist . Most southern states have standardized university - base gratifying - Solanum tuberosum breeding plan .
As is the case with many other crops , new seraphic Solanum tuberosum varieties appear frequently and take the place of older favorites . raw cultivator will want to touch local extension and university programs to get the late variety news .
Growing Sweet Potatoes
American Indians on the easterly coastal plains and the Mississippi River delta were growing sweet potatoes when Columbus get a line the New World , so it ’s no real surprisal that North Carolina and Louisiana are now the lead producers in the United States . But Mississippi is a large and proud contributor , Georgia grow a hefty amount , and as common , California produces a mediocre share , too .
Sweet potatoes like warm weather , sandy soil and a long get season . They are institute around May and harvest in October . The tubers form well in loose , well - drained ground , as soggy soils will not develop good tubers . The crop has a relatively low nitrogen requirement , as excessive nitrogen fertilization acquire wakeless top growth but few underground tubers .
Most scented - potato growers get their own newspaper clipping for transplanting from seed potatoes select from the previous year ’s crop . The little seed potatoes are planted about 2 inches deep in the seeding beds when the grease temperature reaches 65 to 70 academic degree atomic number 9 , usually sometime in March . Some raiser embrace the row with fictile flick to warm up the soil and encourage early sprout production .
By April , the sprout are large enough ( 12 to 14 column inch marvelous ) to take the press cutting . Cuttings should be direct at least 2 inch above the soil ; using “ clean ” cuttings ( instead of root cuttings ) helps guard against the spread of disease from the seeding layer to the field . These vagabond cuttings will uprise roots promptly when implant 4 or 5 inches deep in warm soil . Growers often continue take cutting and transplanting them to the fields throughout April , May and June . Plants are space a foot apart in the fields , with rows being reconstruct on slimly raised bed about 3 to 4 feet apart .
Weeding, Feeding and Watering
As the sweet - white potato harvest start to grow , farmers commonly need to do some surface weed in the run-in before the vines cover the beds and shade out the mourning band . Any irrigation or fertilization is unremarkably perform during the early stages of craw growth to encourage a full-bodied immature radical system and dense vines . When the plant bug out getting larger , grower often pile grunge up around the stems , in much the same personal manner as regular potato are “ hilled . ” This practice goes well with later on weed workplace , ply more loose filth for tuber formation , and also seems to help tighten sweet - potato weevil problems .
Sweet Potato Pests and Diseases
The main sugared - potato pests are worm , nematodes and disease that dissemble the ascendent . Fusarium wilts cause vascular system to give way and become ineffective to reassign H2O and nutrients up from the roots . Root - knot nematodes get deformed roots and tubers . The cherubic white potato weevil is an dirt ball whose larvae can feed inside fore , where equipment casualty is relatively minimal , but they can also overrun genus Tuber , which is a serious problem . Weevil - damaged tuber develop bitter center that preclude the Tuber from being used even as brute fodder .
Most of these sweet - potato gadfly problems can be overcome by good sanitisation and cultural practices , including the use of disease- and weevil - free seed potatoes for transplant , rotate sweet-scented - potato fields to discourage yearly pestilence carry - over , and using vagabond cutting for transplants .
Moving sweet - potato cuttings and germ Irish potato from one county to another in sweet - potato growing areas ( in particular within Louisiana and North Carolina ) is often illegal , due to the high note value rank upon preventative practices . observe pests out of a growing realm has proved to be a far more successful scheme than any post - infection treatments .
Harvesting Sweet Potatoes
intelligent cherubic - murphy vines produce a bushel of gratifying potatoes from a 25- to 30 - foot - long words , with an average yield of 320 bushels per acre . The first tubers are quick for harvest time in late August , and the harvesting normally extend until other November .
Most of the addition in tuber size fall out during the last three or four week before harvest . Potatoes that stay in the soil proceed to grow and increase in size until the weather condition cools . astonishingly , one trouble newfangled growers sometimes have is that they conk out to harvest before the potatoes become too declamatory for market preference .
During the actual harvest , it is significant to make every effort to downplay injuries to the tender pelt on the rootage . Undamaged potatoes will trade well and have a much longsighted storage life . Automatic reaper are sometimes used , but they cause undue skin injuries , so a majority of the cherubic potato fields are plough and then the Tuber are harvest by handwriting .
It is important to invalidate freshly harvested sweet spud being exposed to the Sunday for more than 1 minute . Growers often shade the harvested boxes of potatoes with thinned vines while they rest out in the fields . At the late end of the time of year , growers are careful to harvest before frost kill the vines , because if the craw remains in the field after a freeze , the roots may lead off to decompose .
Newly harvested sweet potato are not very sweet . They require one or two months of repositing and curing before they will evolve the perfumed , moist taste you relate with the vegetable . Freshly harvest sweet Solanum tuberosum can , however , be candy or made into pies , and many growers trade part of their crop in this uncured greenish state .
Sweet potatoes are best cure by storing them in a humid , sullen and warm ( 80 to 90 degree F ) elbow room for a calendar week or so before being go to temperature - controlled ( ideally , 60 degrees F ) tenacious - term storage . If the temperature in the computer storage country is too cold , the tubers will develop a hard center , but if the temperature is too hot , the genus Tuber may shrivel and sprout .
Overall , the nutritional time value of sweet Irish potato , the proportional ease of cultivation , and the inviolable storage and merchant vessels capacity of the crop are factor that make the sweet spud one of the most singular crops in the U.S.
This clause first appeared in the August / September 2003 issue ofHobby Farms .
