Sweet potato roots but no slips

[Taiji]

This is the first time I've tried to grow sweet potato slips from the "potato suspended in water" method. Is it normal for the tuber to make lots of roots first, and then send up the slips later? My jar is filling up with roots, but no sign of any slips yet!

[Gary350]

Plant the whole potato with roots in the garden it will grow several slips=vines.

I have grown sweet potatoes before. You only want 2 vines from 1 potato cut off all the rest. Plant it in the center of a 50 foot row and make each vine grow in opposite directions in that row. One vine grows east the other vine grows west. Put a small shovel of dirt on each vine every 4 feet full length of the vine. Your in AZ you have a long growing season so these vines will grow 300 feet long maybe 1/2 mile long. LOL. In TN frost kills the vines about Halloween then you dig potatoes after the vine dies. When I lived in Phoenix frost never killed the vine it just keeps growing on and on and on. Let your plant grow about 7 or 8 months then check see what your potatoes look like. The mother plant will probably have 35 lbs of potatoes and each satellite plant where you put that shovel of dirt will have about 10 lbs of potatoes. You will probably have 100 lbs of potatoes with the 2 vines from 1 plant. Sweet potatoes LOVE the HOT weather. Get you potato planted now let it grow until about last January. Keep those vines under control they will grow all the way across Maricopa county.

[kayjay]

I had the same problem last year, and I think it's because most grocery store potatoes are sprayed to prevent sprouting. I had lots of roots and eventually the potato just rotted. See if you can find organic and try again, maybe. There are stores near me carrying organic produce, but no sweet potatoes.

[Taiji]

Actually I did use organically grown sweet potatoes and non GMO. Maybe the weather just isn't warm enough yet. We don't keep our house extremely warm in the winter.

[son_of_father]

Hi, I am having this problem right now, did you resolve this? I read something about crushing two vitamin C tables and presoaking the sweet potatoes to take off the suppressant (although I bought organic as well). I wonder if it is too late to do that with it already rooting...?

[Taiji]

No, I never really resolved it. I think finally the potato did grow 3 or 4 little slips, and I planted them out, but it was so late nothing ever came of it. They grew a little but didn't have time to grow much. I didn't even try this year.

I would like to go and buy a 6 pack of prestarted slips someplace if they exist, but haven't ever found any.