Mississippi heads toward a short sweet 'tater crop

Sweet potato harvest started in north Mississippi today, and consultant Phillip McKibben says this will likely be a below-average crop.

“This was the hardest year to get a stand of sweet potatoes that anybody has ever seen,” says the Mathiston, Miss., consultant, who works a good deal of the state’s crop. “During the 2-month planting window between mid May and mid July we only had about 7 days when we could set plants and hope to have an adequate survival rate.”

A combination of wet, cool conditions early were followed by dry, hot periods later. Some growers opted to replant or fill in skippy stands and, consequently, never planted all their intended acres, he says. His growers mostly took the initial stands they had and continued transplanting, which allowed them to at least plant everything they originally scheduled.

“In a lot of cases, 20-30% of the plants died right away, and half of the survivors didn’t look all that promising,” he says. “All of that will affect yields. On the surface, things look fine. The ground is covered with vines. But what you don’t see are the 6-foot skips where there are no plants and there won’t be any potatoes. If you’ve got a 100-acre field but only 80 acres worth of plants, you already know the average will be off.”

Plantings for the crop are staggered for harvest and packing efficiency, and growers will be harvesting through October, McKibben estimates. Mississippi, with about 15,000 acres in production, is usually the third largest producer of sweet potatoes, just behind Louisiana and Texas and just ahead of California.

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