Mkulima today I share farming tips and guide for quality sweet potatoes. Several households are switching to eating healthy meals leading to an increase in demand for traditional African foods.

The leading meals in this trend are African traditional vegetables but some meals like sweet potatoes are not left behind either as substitutes of items like bread on the dining table.

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Farming tips guide for quality sweet potatoes

You are required to grow sweet potatoes in soil mounds or ridges. This type of farming ensures

  • good drainage
  • Aeration
  • Easier harvesting and
  • High yield production.

Construct mounds or ridges by heaping soil up and over residues of previous crops or vegetation from fallow land.

Incorporate compost or manure when making ridges.

This improves

  • soil fertility,
  • maintains soil moisture and
  • provides all the necessary nutrients to the crops.

Mounds should be at a height and width of 30 cm.

For the erect varieties leave a distance of 60 cm between the mounds. For the spreading varieties of the sweet potatoes leave about 1 meter between the production or farming mounds.

Ridges in sweet potatoes farming

To grow in ridges, heap up the soil to a height of 30cm. Ridged rows should be 1 meter apart.

You will need to prepare the ridges either by us of an Ox drawn plow or by use of a hand.

Sweet potatoes virus disease is the most serious disease that affects sweet potatoes. It causes severe stunting of the plants along with the yield production on your farm.

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