The Story of the Sweet Potato

Taken from Joan Everhart's History of Augusta Baptist Association

Let me share with you what I have learned from the Encyclopedia Britannica (1970, Vol.21, p. 512) about sweet potatoes and how to grow them •

The sweet potato is "a food plant of the morning-glory family, native to tropical America and widely cultivated in tropical and the warmer temperate climates. It is a tender perennial grown as an annual in regions where frost occurs."

The sweet Potato "produces no seed above latitudes about 30° [Florida] except under special cultural treatment. The seeds usually produce plants that are unlike the parent plant, therefore the sweet potato is propagated vegetatively by sprouts arising from the roots, or by cutting of the vines. Seeds ... have a very hard seed coat that may retard germination as much as a year, unless the seed coat is nicked or abraded ..."

The sweet potato "is best adapted to ..soils such as sandy loams, since excessive vine growth and small yields or irregularly shaped roots are produced on very rich, heavy soils. At least four to five months of warm weather are required for large yields."

The sweet potato "is propagated usually by bedding the roots close together in sand or light soil in a hotbed....the sprouts that emerge are pulled from the roots and transplanted to the field about 1 to 1 1/2 feet apart on ridges 8 to 12 inches high, 3 feet apart, after the weather and soil have become warm." The roots must be harvested

before the cold soils cause them to deteriorate. The crop will respond well to certain

chemicals, but other procedures may result in injury by a fungus disease.

Sweet potatoes must be "cured" after harvesting for a specified time, temperature, place, and humidity. High temperature and low humidity during the "curing" stage are essential "to hasten the healing of wounds caused in harvesting, thus reducing danger of loss from decay."

The sweet potato is "very susceptible to several diseases, several of which require great care" in preventing and combating.

I'm going to leave it to the theologians to draw all the parallels and make the spiritual

applications. Suffice it to say, growing sweet potatoes in the Valley demands time and effort, patience and persistence. But it can be done--and with great rewards. Just like growing Baptists!