Purple sweet potato cultivation is the right choice for farming because it is quite easy to maintain and does not depend on the season in planting. In addition, the business opportunity of purple sweet potato cultivation is still a great opportunity because of the increasing demand for foodstuffs from tubers, especially purple tubers to be produced into various processed foodstuffs.
The cost of cultivating sweet potatoes is much less and produces much higher profits compared to other fruits and crops such as sugar cane, rice and soybeans. Sweet potato plants are very resistant to dry conditions (xerophytes plant species) in the dry season and can stay alive without watering in a long time.
Nevertheless, good care will be given to the proper and correct cultivation of sweet potato cultivation in order to produce large and abundant yams.
Let's Recognize Sweet Potatoes More Again
Sweet potato plant is a popular vine cultivated by Indonesian people to use the sweet potato as a complementary dish and taken young leaves to be used as vegetables. Sweet potatoes are also widely used as ingredients to make snacks such as cakes, typical souvenir chips, bakpau and bakpia, anekan drinks and even ice cream. In some areas, sweet potatoes are one of the main food commodities.
Sweet potato is one of the foods with abundant carbohydrate source that the body needs. Sweet potato we can make alternative food substitute rice white rice. Actually the nutritional content of sweet potatoes is better when compared with white rice.
Sweet potato plants commonly named after sweet potatoes have a scientific language Ipomoea Batatas L. It is a food derived from South America that lives in tropical temperatures. There are many types of sweet potato cultivated in Indonesia, seen from the popular color planted is sweet brownish sweet potato, red, and purple.
Some popular types of sweet potato include prambanan, borobudur, mendut, kalasan, ibaraki, cilembu, lampeneng and georgia.
In Indonesia, sweet potato cultivation achieves the most optimal productivity when planted in lowland to a height of 500 meters from sea level (mdpl). However, this sweet potato plant can still grow well at altitudes above 1000 mdpl, only the timeframe for harvesting from planting time becomes longer.
Sunlight is required by this plant for maximum results, its solar radiation needs about 11-12 hours a day. Sweet potato cultivation is suitable to be done in tropical area with humid and hot temperature. The ideal temperature for the plant for sweet potatoes is 21-27 degrees Celsius with rainfall of 750-1500 mm per year.
Excess Purple Sweet Potato
Purple sweet potato is a favorite of the author because of the purple sweet potato in the content of the benefits and higher nutrition from the white sweet potato. At 100 grams of purple sweet potato contains vitamin A about 7,700 mg beats vitamin A content in tomatoes. Other purple sweet potato content include crude fiber, vitamin C, B1, lysine, Zn, K, Mg, Cu, minerals, fat, protein and also includes a high source of carbohydrates.
The fiber content in purple sweet potato is very good for digestion, very suitable for diet program. In addition there are antioxidants and which works for immunity and endurance and effective in preventing cancer.
Starting Purple Sweet Potato Cultivation, Here's the Full Guide
The way of cultivating sweet potatoes for all types I may say the same technique is the same, which distinguishes is the rapidity of the harvest from the planting period. There are 4 important steps you should consider for the cultivation of sweet potatoes are good and true. These four methods are quite simple and should be of concern as they will impact on the harvest you earn.
- Selection of Good Seed and Superior
Good seeds and seeds you can buy from the place of purchase of quality sweet potato seeds that have been tested. Seed tubers themselves many varieties, especially from the shape, you can get sweet purple sweet potato seedling varieties ditoko selling agricultural seeds that have won the trust of the agricultural service.
To prepare the seedlings in the cultivation of sweet potatoes can be done in 2 ways, namely the way generative and vegetative way.
1.How Generative
Generative nurseries are rare, but for the results obtained are much better and healthier for prospective sweet potato crops.
Preparation of seeds in a generative way that is nursery of tuber fertilization and then produce new shoots. If you choose a generative way, select the tubers of good quality and healthy, tubers are then sliced into 2 parts or more (its function is to stimulate the tuber to quickly grow its roots and new shoots).
Tubers that have been sliced stabbed with bamboo yag already sliced as a skate or a dummy. Then half of the tuber will be partly put in the water, half on the surface to grow new shoots. Arrange in such a way as to keep the bulbs halfway in the water and half on the surface exposed to the sun.
Prepare a container of water, the container can be like a glass of mineral water / tub to put a lot of tubers that have been blessed. Place the container that already contains the tubers in the damp shade (stay exposed to enough sunlight) to exit the shoot until 2-4 weeks until the shoots have appeared a little root.
After the shoots grow and appear small roots, the buds are moved separately to a special place such as polybag / small bowl, flush daily with enough water for 2-3 days until the leaves buds look fresh and roots grow more.
The last process, fresh shoots are already menajdi seeds ready seedlings planted in your garden / you to grow.
- Vegetative way
Vegetative nursery is nursery without fertilization from tuber. Seedling is done by cuttings from the stem of the choice tuber plants to be used as parent.
How to choose good breeding stem is a plant that has been aged over 2 months with short stems and large stems (can stem can shoot from the stem). The trunk you cut with a length as long as 20-25 cm, on each piece has at least two segments. In the first to grow the roots faster and the second to grow new shoots. Chopping rods for seedlings in the morning.
For vegetative seedlings treatments, the cut stems are cleared and discarded leaves are still stemmed to reduce excessive evaporation, then collect the selected stems and tie with rope (can raffia) per 100 stems / cuttings, store in place shady and cool in standing position (should not be piled) for 7 days.
After that, the seedlings are ready to be planted on your land. Usually this vegetative way is widely used because the preparation process of seedlings relatively faster when used on large land. For an area of one hectare, it takes about 36,000 sweet potato seedlings ready for planting.
Note, nursery by cuttings can be done for generations less than 3-4 times tapping. If it has been up to 4 times the nursery start from the new breeder by way of generative / fertilization of the direct tuber. As more and more brooding of cuttings, the quality of crops and tuber yields is getting worse, smaller and even unfruitful.
- Prepare Good Crop Land
Preparation of this land should be done within a period of at least 3 weeks before planting seeds. Good soil conditions for sweet potato cultivation is sandy loam soil, loose and many contain nutrients and have good drainage. The ideal soil for sweet potato cultivation requires a soil acidity of about 5.5-7.5 pH.
Sweet potato cultivation on dry soil and cracks will decrease plant immunity, consequently the plants are susceptible to pests and diseases. Conversely, when planted in a muddy or wet site tuber will be dwarf, high fiber content, tuber easily rot and the shape is bumpy.
Sweet potato plants grow well on moor land or former rice fields. On moor land, cultivation of sweet potatoes suitable to be done at the end of the rainy season. As for the rice field is more suitable in the dry season. To prepare a good land, the need for fertilizer to improve the quality of the soil relatively requires a lot of fertilizer, let alone the former land of rice fields.
1.Teknik Processing and Fertilization
The first thing to do is landfilling by piracy (with tractor / plow machine), hijacked soil try to be loose and smooth then make beds / mounds of soil for cultivation media of sweet potatoes later. Each row of beds has a width of about 80-100 cm.
While doing the hijacking, you add organic fertilizers such as animal waste and used leaves that have become compost. For the selection of organic fertilizer from the good dirt is cow dung, goat manure and chicken manure provided that the dirt has been diframentasi / dikeringakan first. Provision of manure for tillage on an area of one hectare dose required about 20 tons of manure.
The choice of organic fertilizer is better because it is more natural and healthier if you consume plants from organic cultivation. Organic fertilizers of impurities contain many good elements for plants such as nitrogen (N), phosphorus, potassium (K), calcium (Ca) and others. Another advantage of organic fertilizers such as dirt-dirt was more environmentally friendly and does not damage the soil.
All the organic fertilizers that have been composted and already fragmented are mixed together during the soil eruption to be mixed and reprocessed by the soil on the land. When finished preparing the land and the mounds of ready soil, which should be noted should not be directly planted sweet potato seeds.
The process of waiting until the land is ready to be planted at least 3 weeks after processing the land, if too soon the land is still processing the fertilizer you prepared earlier. If in this process the process of growing plants even so not maximal and even many who die / wilt.
Planting between week 3-4, if too long is also not good because the element of nitrogen in the soil will be much reduced, Nitrogen element (N) soil function for fertility of plant seeds to grow faster for shoots, roots, stems and leaf split and tubers to bear fruit bush.
In the waiting period until the land is ready to plant the seeds that have been prepared, the maintenance of the land that is by irrigating or wetting water sufficiently, the water should not to win the farmland.
- Sweet and Sweet Potato Planting
Sweet potato growers are quite easy to do, but there are trivial things you should look at for this planting for sweet potatoes to grow optimally with adequate nutrition. Seeds of sweet potatoes should be planted by immersing 2/3 stem cuttings into the soil.
On 1 row of cropping land there are two rows of plant lane, seedlings planted on both sides rather marginal from each bed. Distance of plants between one line 40 cm, this is so that inter-plant has a portion of nutrients from the maximum nutrient soil.
Technique of planting the seedlings done in a subtle way, first of the ground beds dug a little with a light planting tool, put the seeds on the ground that has been perforated. Then seed the seedlings also in a subtle way. After all the seeds are planted, the next step is watering.
At the beginning of planting the soil always moist and wet, watering done every morning and evening on every seedlings that have been planted in the bed. If the rain intensity in the plant area is high enough, you do not need to do watering. If the rain water level is too much, you must reduce it so that the moisture level of the soil is maintained.
This initial planting cultivation is done routinely about 2-3 weeks and ensures the plant grows new stem buds, let the buds propagate wildly to the ground to optimize the initial growth of the seeds you plant.
- Purple Sweet Potato Treatment for Large Wheels
After 3 weeks if any seedlings die, fail to grow or wilt immediately do the replanting by replacing the seeds that failed to grow earlier with new seeds. This embroidery activity while you take care of the soil and clean the weeds / weeds that grow in the beds provided for sweet potato plants.
- Cleaning Weeds and Overcoming Plants That Get Pests & Pain
Cleaning of grass / weed is very important because it can interfere with the growth of yams. Nutrient elements contained in the soil will be divided by weeds that grow with sweet potato plants. The weed removal procedure should get to its roots in order not to grow anymore.
Weeds that grow large enough to be removed / removed from around the bed, but if the weeds are still growing small about 0.5 cm can be revoked, cut roots and drowned in the soil around the bed. Weeds / grass contain a lot of nutrients and nitrogen is good for plants that are in its infancy.
If you see sick plants or pests, usually the plants will look withered and unhealthy marked with yellow leaves and many are falling out. Pests that attack sweet potato plants usually are caterpillars that are in the yams and on the leaves.
The solution is to clean the sick plant so as not to contagious, that is by chemical means that is by spraying insecticides such as Curacron 500 EC or Matador 25 with the recommended concentration. If there is a plant that is too sick, you should remove it to cut off the transmission to other plants.
- Watering and Watering
Watering during the growth of sweet potatoes is also needed to grow crops and tubers are large and abundant. The period of formation and development of sweet potato fruit during 1-2 months after planting. At this time watering is done once a week, the best time of watering is in the morning or afternoon.
For irrigation, water irrigation must function properly, it is important to note in the activity of watering is to avoid the soil is not too muddy. Watering can be done once a week continuously. Then watering can be stopped at 2-3 weeks before harvest.
- Soil Pouring
At the age of 4 weeks after the planting period, the treatment is done in the form of soil eruption by dismantling little by little around the base of the planting of sweet potato, the radius is about 10 cm from the center of the plant roots. This is intended to grow the plant does not spread everywhere, from the experience of the farmers in this way, the optimal growth, tidy and bulb that dihasilan large enough.
At the age of 6-9 weeks the demolished land was closed again while smoothing the roots that sprout out of the planting jalr. If the bulb growth concentration is set centered on the root root, the bulbs will grow large-sized.
- Harvesting Sweet Potato
Sweet potato season ready to be harvested is when the cassava plant is 3.5-4.5 months old, depending on the varieties of sweet potatoes grown. Good harvesters are done during the dry season, harvesting when the soil is loose and too wet will make the tubers wet and prone to decay.
If the harvest time coincides with the rainy season, the solution is to choose a day at least 7 days after the rain falls. If it is difficult to meet the appropriate day, after harvesting the harvested tubers should be dried from the remaining water, dried or sweetened to dry the tubers.
Make sure after harvesting the bulbs clean and dry. Successful cultivation of sweet potato plants is a plant that can produce at least 1 kg of each plant seed. Calculations for one hectare of land can yield 25 to 30 tons. In certain varieties such as sweet potatoes of Borobudur varieties and kalasan can reach 30-40 tons per hectare harvest.