Sweet potato vines let them grow or trim them???

[gixxerific]

I was in a argument the other day about the topic of letting your sweet potato vines grow wild or hack them in half to increase tuber growth. I know that when the vines root in the soil they can produce satellite tubers that may take away from the central hub of spuds. Which is why a lot of commercial growers put down plastic to keep this from happening.

Just wondering what you think about backyard gardeners. I myself don't mess with them at all unless the encroach on the yard than they may get mowed. Do you ever trim your sweets up? This guy was telling me his aunt came by one time and said what you need to do is cut half of that vine away to make them grow better.

Thanks

[soil]

the tender growth tips make good eating, so why not keep them pruned and get some grub while your tubers are maturing under the soil. now you get two crops where you otherwise would have had just one.

[Gary350]

When I lived at the other house and had limited garden space I use to rake the vines clock wise in a circle to keep them all in a certain area. The vines got pretty deep over laping each but it did not seem to hurt anything.

Now I have a garden 4 times larger at the new house so I don't have to worry with it as much. I planted 6 plants this year and they would have taken over a whole 40' x 40' section of the garden if I had not mowed around them with the lawn mower. I kept all the vines in a spot 18' x 25' and it did not seem to hurt the plants at all.

Next year I plan to use sweet potato vines for ground cover for the tomatoes, peppers, okra and corn then mow around that area to keep the vines from spreading to places I don't want.