I lately come a gossip on this video where a watcher demand why her sweet potatoes are droop and have yellow folio :
So – are these sweetened potatoes going to make it ?
Kerri writes:
“ Hey David ! I am a new gardener ( new to veggies , anyway ) – and I grew my own slips from an organic fresh tater from Publix , establish them in early June , and have been joyously watching them turn . ( I experience in Orlando , BTW . )
I ’m commence to freak out a bit because the other daylight I notice that I had a few yellow leaves – I pull them off and did n’t worry . But then I attend out there at about 5:00 and comment that the intact bed was awfully sagging . It see like a man had just laid down and roll around in the bed or something . Then about 20 instant later , the sky started to cloud over and they stood back up . I ’ve been watching them closely and they are hunky-dory in the sunrise and eventide , but moderately droopy when the blistering sun is on them . I mean it was just the Sunday and heat , but I started translate online about fusarium wilt .
I ’m FREAKING OUT that that ’s what it is . More leaves are turn lily-livered , but I ’m still getting unexampled ontogenesis and the huge majority of leaves are greenish . I ’m finding some dead , brown leaves underneath , but I do n’t see anything wrong with the vine halt . The bottom is pretty crowded . ( I did a raise seam , 4×4 and about 8″ grandiloquent , put thin cardboard down and dirt on top . There was sodomite under the composition board . )
Do you have any advice ?
I will be suppress if I do n’t have any edible sweet potatoes issue forth November . Thank you so much – I have one of your record book and I love it , so I ’ll be getting more . :) ”
More Photographic Evidence
Here are a few more pictures Kerri sent :
Here are the gratifying white potato when all is damp and cool :
And here they are when the Lord’s Day is overreach down :
Normally , I only post garden picturesfrom readers wearing pink somersault - flops , but this metre I made an elision .
Why are These Sweet Potatoes Wilting ?
Over the many eld I ’ve get sweet potatoes , I ’ve never had a problem with fusarium wilt or other nasty diseases . They ’re easy to develop , particularly in Florida , and so long as you do n’t keep acquire them in the same place they usually produce a yield .
If the soil was hot sand , they might only give you petty root word … but this soil looks very nice . I do n’t see anysigns of herbicide damageor serious insect problems , either .
The hot sunlight is tough on plant with tender leaves , such as sweet potatoes and pumpkins . These sweet potatoes are also in a spicy microclimate judgement by the white wall behind them . If you ’ve ever gotten a dotty sunburn while out on the water , you sleep together how brooding surfaces can be problematic on your skin . The same is lawful for plant .
That say , I do n’t think the paries is a big deal .
But What About the Yellow Leaves?
If there were a lot of yellow leaves on these plants I would worry . This just looks like the normal growth of perfumed potatoes to me . As they senesce , they drop some of the old leave of absence and put out new single .
There was a hypothesis that they were overwatered ( overhead irrigation can make some rot ) ; however , Kerri wrote me in an email and headed off that possibility :
“ I know I ’m not supposed to be water them much – it ’s not raining as much as it should this twelvemonth , so if it does n’t rain once a calendar week I water them . ”
She ’s also concerned about the rotten brown spots here and there on the leave-taking .
In my experience , all this is normal with sugared white potato , particularly as the summer rolls on . Florida is blistering and humid . There are draw of insects , fungi and other thing that can damage your sweet potatoes .
Yet this harm is ordinarily whelm by the plants . I ’ve had some really awful looking vines produce quite serviceable roots for the mesa .
My advice : if the blot and yellowing get a lot unfit , make up some compost tea with fresh compost plus some yogurt , kefir , kombucha or other living fermenting ; stir it up , then pullulate it or spray it over them all the next mean solar day . That often head off disease issuance .
For now , stay the course and keep doing what you ’re doing , Kerri . I think you ’re going to be fine . If everything looks perfect , you ’re probably in a laboratory !
There ’s a reason I plug sweet-scented white potato heavily in my popular bookTotally Crazy Easy Florida Gardening . They usually take a lickin ’ and keep on tickin ’ .
expert destiny and rent me know how they turn out – and thank you for reading .
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