Hi
Some of my sweet potatoes have deep, straight, fairly sharp-bottomed grooves in them; see the attached photo. They are Georgia Jet variety and, as I mentioned, only part of the crop was affected. Even within an individual hill, some were good and some deformed. Any ideas?
Thanks.
What we old folks call second growth. At some point in its growth the potato stopped growing ( drought, heat etc) when conditions improved it took off again. Usual cause is drought followed by ample rain.
I had many sweets that looked like that and wondered if the heat and my hubby's inconsistant watering was the cause. They taste just as good once cooked and mashed.
Good to know they are still edible;o)
Farmerdill, thanks much for the explanation. HoneybeeNC, what variety of sweets showed the cracking problem for You? Mine were Georgia Jets, which, aside from the cracking issue, are a heavy yielding, very tasty 'tater in my experience. I'll grow them again. I've also grown Beauregards, Centennials, and Whites. The Whites had a poor yield and were small (also fairly dry, but still tasty), the other two varieties were OK, but didn't yield nearly as much as the Jets.
Willy
The antiques which grow large are the most susceptible. Porto Rico's are pretty susceptible. Most whites are dry and poor yielders, there was a white out of North Carolina ( I knew it as White Jewel) that was good both as in yield and taste. I am partial to the New Jewel, but most of the modern varieties do pretty well. Beauregard is a good yielder an good taste. Centennial is great except that it will run to jumbo sizes. Georgia Jets and Georgia Reds are also very good. Hernandez was a dissapointment for me both in yield and taste. Pretty potato tho.
An antique called Willow Leaf
That Willow Leaf sure looks nice. Pretty vines too if those belong to it that I can see in the pic;o) I may have to try Beauregard with your vote of confidence.
Willy - Georgia Jet does well for me here, but so do the random varieties I get from the Farmer's Market and start slips from;o) They love our summer heat (not much else does) as long as they get adequate water. For me here that means deep watering about every 3 days all summer long...
Most of sweet potatoes in the supermarkets are Beauregards. It does well altho I personally prefer the New Jewel.
Willow Leaf Leaves
I'll add New Jewel to the gotta try it list;o)
Nice leaves! It's always nice for my small garden when the leaves look nice too...
Thanks to all of you who have commented, and to those still to comment. I, too, will seek out New Jewel. Where can they--and Willow Leaf--be found? I've seen Jewel on occasion in the supermarket, but not in any of my seed catalogs. Farmerdill, you mentioned antique varieties being susceptible to second growth, but aren't Porto Rico and GA Jet fairly new varieties? Locakelly, roughly where in Phx do you live? We are exiles from Mesa, glad to be in quieter & cooler southern AZ, but our kids still live in metro Phx. Thanks again, Farmerdill, for the diagnosis.
Georgia Jet is relatively new. Porto Rico was the first commercial orange fleshed moist sweet potato. It is the one that started the yam-sweet potato controversy. Southern growers began marketing the Porto Rico as a yam to differentiate it from the white and yellow fleshed sweet potatoes. Introduced around the turn of 20th century. The "bunch" version is newer.
Edited to say, Sandhill Preservation has the best collection sweet potatoes around. They are northern so tend to ship late. Last year had a problem and did not offer many individual varieties. http://www.sandhillpreservation.com/pages/sweetpotato_catalog.html
This message was edited Nov 18, 2010 8:28 PM
Holy Smoke, Farmerdill!!! I had NO IDEA that there were so many varieties. I've grown about six varieties and figured I'd settle on GA Jets. Now I'll be long gone before I can try all of 'em and pick a favorite. Thanks a lot for the info and Happy Growing to you. Ain't the Internet a miracle!
It sure is, and Farmerdill has lots of experience and isn't afraid to share it;o)
I'm in west Phoenix on the Glendale border and I work in Tolleson. I have a few friends (DG and non) that live in Mesa or nearby.
I grow Vardeman which I purchase from:
http://www.newhopeseed.com/vardaman_sweetpotato.html
I have already placed another order from them for next spring - 50 slips for $28.00 including shipping.
Last year I received 55 slips and they produced approximately 300 lbs of sweets.
They are a deep orange and very sweet. The vines are "bushy" and don't take up a lot of space - about four feet either side of the slips should be enough.
The photo was taken just after they became established - they grew enough to take over the entire area in photo.
Has anyone grown any of the Korean varieties? There is one with purple skin and orange flesh that is our favorite for eating because they are so sweet that we eat them simply baked. They are available at our Asian farmer's market and I've thought of growing out slips. I'd like to grow them.
Laurel
I have a problem with Georgia Jets splitting even though we have very consistent watering. While we were in MN, someone else(paid employee) was taking care of the farm and didn't follow instructions. She let the whole farm get bone dry, then flooded to try and cover up before we came back. OMG, those sweet potatoes were the ugliest I've ever seen.
I like Centennials, just have to keep an eye on them so they don't get huge. Our customers love them and they tolerate abuse.
Farmerdill, have you noticed Georgia Jets seem to make the potatoes much deeper underground that other varieties? and not always right under the plant?
Thanks to all of you who replied! I now have an ID for my problem--thanks Farmer Dill & Honeybee--AND some new sources/varieties to try for sweet potatoes.
Another piece of info regarding the cracking problem; I sent the picture showing the cracks to the outfit I got the slips from and they said: 1) Georgia Jets are susceptible to cracking in their experience, 2) irregular watering does aggravate the condition, and 3) planting the slips closer together minimizes the problem. They recommend a 10-inch planting spacing (its non-intuitive to me, but they do this for a living). Finally, they said that, despite the cracking problem, Georgia Jets are their favorite, and their most popular, variety.
Wow - who knew that there were so many varieties of 'sweet potatoes'. I've never paid much attention to what the variety was from the ones I purchased at the grocery store. I am curious to know which variety has the best FLAVOR...??...
I grew sweet potatoes for the first time this year...just harvested 'my experiment' for Thanksgiving....NOT sure what variety they were...but they sure were tasty --> (coconut oil, s&p, and a little allspice).
Although I haven't grown sweet potatoes in years, I am grateful for the information about second growth. Many of my white potatoes suffered the same fate, with the semi-split in the middle. Weather was erratic, hot, dry, rainy etc, and they were left in the ground too long also. My fault on that. Good information.
I plant sweet potatoes close together, probably 12 inch spacing. I still get splitting with the Georgia Jets. I try to not leave them in the ground past 90 days which seems to help lessen the amount of cracks in them.
We're trying an experiment this winter with our sweet potatoes. I've never had success growing them after November here, but I'm giving it a try with a new growing method. I'll let everyone know if it works.
