Can someone please help me out? I need to know if I should cut the longer stems and put them in water now. Thanks.

I stick them in the ground myself. But yes they are ready to do something with, you can root them in water or a soil mix. The extra long ones you can cut into pieces and root several plants.

Thanks farmerdill, much appreciated. Any idea why one (whole potato) resulted in longer ones and the other (cut-up potato) so short slips, when both received same light?

So you are saying I can stick them now in the ground without first rooting them? Thanks.

Assuming that its warm enough, yes they will root in the ground as well if not better than the water. Use to clip of f young vines and plant them when we ran short in a planting. Sweet potatoes need heat, but otherwise are almost as indestructible as bermuda grass.

I grow slips and have found that sometimes there is no method to the madness. This year I have some cut and some whole. They are all from the same source, and all in the exact same area, yet they all grew at different rates. Like yours some are huge, while others are very small. Some of mine that were cut in half even have different growth rates from their other half. I just think it is random. This is what I will say, if you cut your potatoes you increase the risk of fungus growth around the cut. I don't think it matters, but I have noticed they tend to rot quicker around the cut (obviously). I will be planting mine today as well. I just break them at the base and hope it has a few roots growing there. I'll trim the bottom few leaves and plant them about 3 inches deep. It seems to work for me. From what I understand sweet potatoes are not too picky. You could probably through a potato on some soil and it will eventually root.

I started growing my sweet potato slips way too early because I have been unsuccessful in the past getting anything growing and I wanted to test different methods. This year I finally figured out what works for me. But now I have sweet potato vines growing all over. I need to cut the long vines and get them to root for planting out sometime at the end of May (when my peas die back). I know you can cut up the vines but I am not exactly sure how to plant them.

Does a leaf node need to be under the soil.

If so, do you trim off the leaves for the part of the vine that is under the soil.

Is it best to root the vine cutting in soil or water.

Here is a picture of the potato vine that I am trying to cut and root.

yolos, you don't have to over-think sweet potatoes. They will eventually grow if you just throw clipping on your soil. Easiest way to do it is to cut about a 6 inch piece of vine, trim of about 3 inches of leaves off leaving the vine half bare. Then plant the bare side under ground. I personally believe roots grow faster out of the nodes, but ultimately there will be roots growing on the entire underground portion. I would go straight to the ground.

I've been trying to root my purple sweet potato in potting soil in a shallow pan. It is very slow. I just see one purple shoot coming up now. Hope it is not too late for spring planting. I count on them. Next year I may start them a little early. Half of them are old that I saved from last November.

When the slips grow taller, I'll cut them and put them in the potting soil for a week or two. Hope I still have some time to do that before it is time to plant them.

Thank you planterjeff, that was exactly the information I was looking for. I won't be able to plant the sweet potatoes in the raised bed until the Garden Peas finish. The peas just started setting pods. With this cool weather we are having, I just may get some peas this spring. So I will try rooting my sweet potato vines in small pots.

Saw a YT video once where the person lays some cutting flat on the ground (maybe it was about 6"). Using some kind of stick or tool with a notch in it, he pushes down into the ground at the middle section, with the notch connecting there at the middle of the cutting. The result is that the center of the cutting is the part that is buried, and the plant has two stems coming up out of the ground. His plants grew just fine that way also, without other additional time used to strip leaves or plant only one end, etc.

In his case, he was planting a lot, so that method worked for lots of plantings.

As for how the slips grow from the potatoe, if you want to do more experimentation, keep track of which slips are from which potatoes. When you get the produce yield, see if it has a better yield also. If it does, keep these as the seed potatoes for next year.