You can use store-bought sweet potatoes for to grow starts. There are a couple of things to watch out for, though. 1) They are often treated with a sprout inhibitor. It's best to try to find some which already have sprouts on them if at all possible. Generally, if you hunt through a pile of them, you can usually find a few starting to grow. If you can't, buy the freshest, nicest, least-blemished or bruised ones you can, and put them in a paper sack in a warm, dry place for three or four weeks. This will often start them sprouting. Alternatively, just plant in moist potting soil and see what happens. 2) Cutting in half isn't really an appropriate way to do this. I suppose it could be done, but I've never really heard of the pracice, and I think they would most likely just rot. Unlike "Irish" potatoes, sweet potatoes only have meristematic tissue capable of growing shoots on one end, in my experience, and the other end (generally the more pointy end) grows root tissue. So, if you do try cutting them, you need to cut them in half vertically (lengthwise) so that each half has some tissue from each end. 3) The usual method of starting sweet potatoes is from "slips" -- rooted cuttings. Generally, you can plant a sweet potatoe in potting soil, and it will send out several to many shoots. These will grow rapidly, and can then be cut into about 4 to 6 inch lengths, rooted in water, and then planted out in the garden (be sure to acclimate them to outdoor conditions first). You CAN grow them by planting whole tubers, I've done it, and it works fine, but it's more expensive than just buying one tuber and growing slips -- you can get many, many slips from one tuber. Hope this gives you some guidance. I'll be interested to see if anyone knows about cutting them in half.

We raised potatoes for years. Here is a little I know about seed potatoes. Potatoes (tubors) are "clones" unless you use TPS (true potato seed). (very small seeds produced on the top of the plant in small pods) TPS can produce off spring that are different from the parent. There are a couple of ways of propagating new seed potatoes. Tissue culture is one, and there is a newer one that uses hydroponics. There is pre nuclear, nuclear, G1-G6 (generation) As each year goes by for producing seed stock the offspring have a higher probability for getting disease. Also the yield can start to taper off for each successive generation. After G6 we say the seed is "run out" They use stringent testing to check for disease. Good quality eating potatoes can be as good as seed potatoes but are not tested for certification. For example G3 seed grown for table stock might be as good as G3 grown for seed. However table stock is not tested for disease. G3 grown for seed becomes G4 for the following year. If you cut the seed, make sure the cut side "heals" for several hours to a few days (depending on humidity and temp). Tops mancozeb is a common seed treatment used to prevent disease in cut pieces. Also, eating potatoes can be treated to prevent sprouting so they may not work for seed. One disease that is particularly bad for potatoes is late bight. The newer A2 mating is very aggressive. Humidity plays a big part in this disease. Monitoring stations keep track of humidity and after adding numbers up in a special formula spraying notices are sent out to growers. After you start spraying you have to continue through the season to keep it from getting a toe hold in your field. This winter I took some sprout tips and grew some potatoes in small pots. I am going to try to try them this spring for seed. They look disease free and I am curious how well they might produce. Here is a link for some info on potato growing. http://www.panhandle.unl.edu/peyes.htm Alex Pavlista is well known in potato circles.

Yes...please keep us posted. I'm trying TPS for the first time. Mine are still wee babies, but looking good. I'll be interested in how yours are doing. What are you using for fertilizer?

What an amazingly informative post! Thanks for settling the question of when to dig sweet potatoes! I have dug mine before frost most years but many of the "old timers" around here believe that letting the frost kill the vines and then digging up the potatoes the next day somehow makes them keep better over the winter. Most likely an old wives tale it sounds. Also nice to hear about curing....Last year for first time I laid my sweet potatoes out on a wire bakers rack in an 85- 90 degree attic area with a fan on them for almost 2 weeks....they kept INCREDIBLY well all winter long and I still have viable sweet potatoes I dug last October. So I can vouch for your curing statement! Also fascinating to hear that "Irish" (I thought that was just rural-speak for describing Idaho-type potatoes but is what we call them too) potatoes are closely related to tomatoes. As you probably can tell reading this thread, I have far less experience with "irish" potatoes than with sweet potatoes. I love the latter, not only because I prefer to eat them, but I also enjoy watching the vines grow so vigorously. Now I have to go research your last statement...who knew you could eat sweet potato leaves?:) Sorry if this thread has veered to far off from original question, but the subsequent posts have been so interesting I couldn't resist. thanks all.