I had 600 row feet of beauregards last year and when they were young, I ran through with a cultivator straddling the row/hill. I pulled a lot of vines with it and worried I'd lose too many, so I quit after a few weeks to let them grow. I had less weeds than the year before, but I had a ton of tubers. Best production I ever had. Lots of bakers. Lots of multi-meal bakers. Very few spindly fingerlings at all. Besides running through with the cultivator, the only other difference was that I added a lot of fresh horse manure in March before the slips went in the ground in May. I do not know if it was the cultivation or the manure, but I plan to do both again this year. I have bad pigweed and johnsongrass infestation later in the summer when the vines fill in and I can't get in to do anything about them. I figure I gave the sweets enough help early on that they were healthier before the onslaught of the jungle. I wonder if your spacing is an issue. I space 18 to 24 inches apart. Just a good step sideways. wider spacing means larger tubers. Hill is about knee deep or so. Less once I shove in slips and firm the dirt around them. And less again once it rains on them and settles them. But still decent height and spacing.

I've grown sweet potatoes three times here in Northern Michigan, I'm zone 5. The first year the Georgia Jets I planted did wonderfully. The last two years I've planted Beauregard, Nancy Hall, Georgia Jet and another white skinned sweet potato. My yield has been pretty much zero, in spite of watering, mulching, building up that high "hill" that Steele tells me SPs like. I've given them up, I'll just have to buy them, the slips cost about $20 by the time I pay shipping and SPs are less than 50 cents a pound here in season. Definitely not cost effective, as well as frustrating... I never thought of the night time temps, although I did cover the ground around the plants with black plastic to keep in heat, with no apparent improvement. It's usually in the 50s here at night, even in July and August, and some nights dip into the 40s. Annie

Here it is November and I still have sweets to harvest. The freeze got the vines, but the roots are protected underground and are still fine. Will try to finish up this week. We�ve had two consecutive years with bad growing conditions and my sweetpotato harvest was pretty dismal for the most part. I planted about 125 varieties and the harvest was all over the map. Also, some were very cracked while others had no cracks at all. I tried to keep them watered, but the creek ran dry in late July. Most were planted the end of June to the first week in July, so they didn�t get much water to produce. Unfortunately my Red Wine Velvet was not as I had hoped. I have enough roots, but not near what I had hoped for what I planted. Also, my Ozark County didn�t make enough to get an Idea of how it will do for me. It was planted on the end of a row where the soil was not quite as good. Some of the Varieties that produced what I considered very well to outstanding considering the season were: 8633 (the best producer with large uniform roots). Arkansas Red, Barberman, Ginseng Orange, Georgia Jet, (mine is the better clone and didn�t have any cracking), Mahan/Bradshaw and Dianne. Not necessarily in that order. Also my new purple fleshed variety called Molokai Purple was very good production although the roots are long and skinny. Honorable mention goes to Wakenda and Wilma�s. There are others, but these come to mind. From a report of a grower that lives in southern Missouri, the best this year with 3 to 5 pounds per plant was Georgia Yam, Fork leaf Red, Darby, Indiana Gold, Hayman, Porto Rico, Envy and Brinkley White A report from a Texas Grower also confirmed Red Wine Velvet as the best producer for him followed by "Purple". A report from back east reported the best was 8633 with an average of 10 pounds per plant. This grower reported getting about 125 pounds from 25 plants of various varieties he got from me, which makes his growing season special I thought... I am working on some sweetpotato breeding myself for purple flesh and was excited that some of my new seedlings this year had purple flesh. I�m trying to get a dark Purple flesh that tastes like Red Wine Velvet with the production of Beauregard. That should keep me busy for a few years LOL.

Here in Tassie there is a tradition not to plant out anything fragile until after Rememberance Day - 11th November. Mind you we once had snow in December! I am definitely going to try the slips idea, even in a colder climate. It will be interesting to see how we all go with this in different locations. Cheers Linda