Good questions! As long as you keep some vines alive and healthy until spring, you can use the rooted tips as slips. The challenge is avoiding indoor pests like spider mites and whiteflies. For this reason I would limit how much vegetation you have growing, keeping in mind that whatever roots are present now will be in very bad shape by planting time in late spring. I suggest propagating your stock now, by rooting a fresh crop of stem tips in water, and then potting up some of those plants in late winter. They will grow into lush little plants that can be sunk into a bucket of sand when the weather warms in late spring, forming the foundation stock for your sweet potato slip nursery. Hope this helps.

Commercially they keep them for three or four years. Just be sure the roots don't stay too wet through the winter. When growth starts in the spring trim the old foliage off being careful not to cut into the crown. Al

Thanks Mike and Karyn . I have the bubbler going, but I also have some smaller cuttings in glasses. My set up on the bubbler makes it kind of difficult for short cuttings. So I probably need to work something out and get rid of the glasses. Maybe a pot with holes to kind of hold them up out of the water ..at least to the depth that I want them at. These are my new ebay brugs, so I sure don't want to loose them. Some of them I potted up as soon as I got them without rooting them, and they are doing well. But the big problem is...where the heck to put all those pots!!

Oops. I kinda missed the boat on your question; somehow I overlooked the "hydro" part. On that note, you'll have to figure out a way to keep the air temperature warmer. This will probably mean growing in a heated greenhouse. Of course, you could do what the rest of us do and merely buy new "pre-treated" bare-root stock each year. That way, every year is a "first-year" crop and the fruit production is its highest. Second and third-year productions are far less than the first year's. If you do the bare-root thing, be sure to order by late October or November or you may be out of luck. They go fast and when they're gone; they're gone. If you can hook up with a commercial grower, you might be able to buy for cheaper. The commercial crew buys them by the pallet. That's about 12,000 individual plants. They're REALLY cheap when you buy them like that! "Pre-conditioned" by the way means the plants have had the necessary amount of "cold hours" before they are shipped. So, if you want to propagate from your own runners, you'll have to make sure you give the new starts about 160 hours of chill time or they won't fruit! Hope that sets things straighter! :O)