Being a crop of high nutritional values to the farmers, sweet potato production is determined by the type and level of technology used.
One month before sweet potato harvest, mark 25 healthy plants infield by inserting a stick next to each and at harvest, store 40 mature roots from these plants for next growing season seed source. Roots for storage must come from healthy plants.
Seed production
First, 3-5 day before harvest, check selected plants and without using plants from any infected plants for storage, 3-4 days before harvest, cut vines down from healthy plants leaving about 15cm of stem to harden skin of root for better storage. Harvest when soil fully dry taking care not to cut or damage roots.
Similarly, at harvest, store about 40 medium size roots and proceed to next season to produce about 1500 cuttings. Remove dirt from roots using only hands and place them under shade for a few hours a way from direct sunlight and dont wash them. To store roots you need newspaper to align the container, a container and sand which is gathered to fill the containers. Dry and cool the sand inside or under shade making sure it is free from trash and completely dry.
Furthermore, cover bottom of container with newspaper and add a 2-3 cm layer of dry sand and place a single layer of roots making sure they don‘t touch each other. Cover roots completely with another layer of dry cool sand and continue to layer roots and sand until container is full with final layer 10cm deep to keep rodents, insects and chicken from reaching roots. Do not cover container, store in a cool dry place away from children, chicken, heat and rain leaving it un touched until it is time to check roots which is done once a month to make sure they are healthy. Remove each root from container for inspection and discard rotten roots and ones infected with weevils and remove sprout from roots and refill container with remaining healthy roots exactly as before.
Finally inspect for the last time, do not remove sprout and prepare seedbed of 3*5m to plant roots stored using tripple S method.
