Starting Sweet Potatoes from Seed (True Seed/biological seed

[macmex]

It's hard to phrase so that we get the picture in English. "Seed" is often used, when speaking of potatoes or sweet potatoes, of roots used for propagation. What I mean here by "seed" is real seed, as in what comes from a flower. Last year I started thinking about this seriously and when I harvested my sweets I kept an eye open for seed pods. I found some and so far I have managed, to start one plant, probably from Red Wine Velvet crossed with something else. 

Here's a link to the Sweet Potato Network thread on My first experience with sweet potato true seed

[rdback]

Wow, that's pretty cool George!

Who knew!

Best of luck with their grow-out this year.

[john]

Pretty cool, I will be excited to see how it does for you.

[macmex]

I started three more seeds the other day, all probably from Grand Asia. Here's a photo of the first one. Notice it has it's first true leaves now. Growing well!

[heavyhitterokra]

That's beautiful, George!

Thanks, for posting the photo.

[macmex]

The Red Wine Velvet seedling is growing quickly. I took this photo two days ago.


The I planted three other seeds on March 12, this time, probably from Grand Asia. As of yet there are none sprouting.

[chrysanthemum]

I think Sweet Potato plants are truly beautiful.  Ours grew up an arched trellis last year, and one of the dozen or so slips had variegated leaves.  It was very interesting to see the genetic diversity in that plant which had grown from the very same potato as all the others.  I had only a few flowers on the whole trellis before harvest (Thanksgiving Day), and they were beautiful as well.  I trimmed the vines several times for eating, though, because I figured sweet potato leaves were our best bet for summer greens.  My kids loved them at first but found them less palatable in the later summer.

I figure my climate is really well suited for growing sweet potatoes, but I haven’t had a great deal of success.  The first year I tried it was because a neighbor found a sprouted sweet potato in her pantry, and she was kind of scared of it, so I took it and planted slips in mid summer.  We had an early freeze that year.  We still got a little crop and enjoyed eating them on Thanksgiving after they had cured.

Last year I tried to grow slips in the spring (moist sand technique) and didn’t succeed.  Later in the summer I found a sweet potato from the grocery store that had the beginnings of sprouts, and I put it in water and grew some slips.  It was still a late start to the season, and we had more success growing but experienced a good bit of rodent damage.

I’m trying again this year and think my first slip is beginning to sprout.

I’ve read a bit about the idea of growing “Irish” potatoes from true seed.  It’s interesting to see someone doing something similar with sweet potatoes.  Thanks for posting your experience.  I’ll be interested to see how things go.

[macmex]

Usually when one fails to get slips from roots it's because of insufficient heat. I bet that was the problem. Hope you do better this year. They should LOVE your climate. 

I like to use drip irrigation and plant under plastic (with mulch on top to prevent overheating). Then, all summer, I irrigate each row, overnight, once a week. As long as they receive enough moisture, they just grow like wild with the hottest days Oklahoma can throw at them.

Here's a photo of the latest seedlings to come up. I'm suspecting that some are from my first planting and some from the second. I did both plantings in the same tray, so there's no way, now, to distinguish between them.

[boiledpeanut]

Do you know if these seeds need to stratify to germinate?

[macmex]

I'm sorry, I missed your question until now.
No, I don't believe they need stratification. But they do need lots of heat. I planted two or three rounds of seeds in the greenhouse this  year, each time planting in the same tray. Each time it appeared that I only had a partial success rate. Yet temps have risen (especially night time temps) and I came back from being away for a week and found this in the green house. The tray was almost hidden in foliage from adjacent trays of slips. I had left one seedling in there before leaving. Returning, I found three seedlings in there!






I'm concluding that sweet potato seeds really want constant warmth for good germination.

Before leaving for a week I transplanted most of my seedlings into a temporary bed, outside. One reason for this was that they wouldn't be any work at all to maintain during my absence. The other reason was that I've found, after a point, that the plants do better under the open sky than in the greenhouse. I think sometimes the temps get too high in there and, more importantly, beneficial insects are not as likely to go in there. I've had aphid and mite problems, from time to time, in the greenhouse.

[heavyhitterokra]

George,

Have you seen the forecast for this coming Saturday morning?

My forecast says a possibility of 49 degrees by Saturday morning. Tomorrow (Thursday) is forecast to be 85 degrees with a 100% chance of severe weather ahead of the cold front moving this way.

Just a 'heads up' in case you have any seedlings that might need to be sheltered.

We've had a history of Memorial Day Flooding in years past.  I remember wading water hip deep at DX Refinery in Tulsa to retrieve my car from the parking lot there, back in 1984.

[macmex]

I haven't updated this thread in a while. To get the fullest information on it, check it out on The Sweet Potato Network. I harvested three different sweet potatoes from seedlings I grew last year. Here are pictures of two which I tried eating today.



This, the first, came from a seedling which produced a huge plant with extra thick, large stems and leaves. The roots looked very much like those of Grand Asia when I dug them. It took until today before I tried cooking a small root and trying it. To my surprise, this one has bi-colored flesh: creamy whitish outside with a light violet interior core. The flesh was dense, moist and sweet, reminding me somewhat of Okinawa. I'm really excited about growing this one out again, and doing a more complete trial on it.




This other seedling produced a good quantity of roots with a light tan colored skin. I baked a small, thin root and tried it, without any sweetening or butter. The flesh was dark orange in color, somewhat fiberous, moist and fairly sweet.  It's my habit to bake sweet potatoes in their skins and eat them in their skins, but this ones skin was thick and tough enough that I ended up peeling most of the root before eating it. I will grow this one out, as well, in 2022.

[macmex]

I started some more sweet potato seeds on February 21. One batch from 2020 seed I harvested and labeled as from Red Wine Velvet or Becca's Purple. The two were adjacent to one another and I wasn't sure which one was the female parent. It's possible that they could be a cross between the two. Who knows?

That same day i started some seed from Kaukura Sweet, a recently developed cultivar which has beautiful maroon foliage and produces pretty tasty roots with deep, moist orange flesh. The only problem I have with Kaukura is that it is plant variety patented, so it is illegal to propagate this variety without paying a royalty fee. However, there is nothing stopping someone from using it in a breeding experiment. A friend (June) who lives near Oklahoma City saved me some seed and I planted some.

So far we have two of the Red Wine Velvet/Becca's Purple seedlings and one Kaukura Sweet seedling. Each plant has tremendous potential for diversity, albeit I don't expect most to be worth saving as a new variety. One never knows. 

Here's a picture of the RWV/Becca's seedlings as of March 1.



Here's a photo of the one Kaukura seedling which has germinated.


Here's a link to the thread on the Sweet Potato Network

[chrysanthemum]

Thanks for updating us on your experiments. This is so interesting to watch.

[Tucson Grower]

Well, since the nice sweet potato start I got from macmex, for growing in 2022 was eaten by javalina. I'm still determined to grow some. I really like them with purple flesh, so I found, on Amazon a batch of "true" sweet potato seed, for cheap, of a purple fleshed type. I hope they are what they say they are. So, I will be starting some, soon. What do the actual seed look like? I know the seedlings resemble morning glory, but do the seeds also resemble morning glory seeds? If they do, then perhaps the seed I have may not be - Ipomoea batatas. These are small and light brown.