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ASHS 2015 Annual Conference

Yield Performance of Sweetpotato as an Alternative Agriculture Enterprise in Delaware

Wednesday, August 5, 2015: 5:45 PM
Bayside C (Sheraton Hotel New Orleans)
Lekha Paudel, Delaware State University, Dover, DE, United States
Marikis N. Alvarez, Delaware State University, Dover, DE
Rose Ogutu, Delaware State University, Dover, DE
Sweetpotato (Ipomoea batatas) can be a potential alternative agriculture enterprise for underserved producers of limited resources. Also, it is an efficient, drought-tolerant crop to grow in 120 days with respect to yield/unit area in comparison to other crops. Moreover, sweetpotato is a nutritious crop, being rich sources of carbohydrates with precursor of vitamin A, C, and E, and it is fat-free. Therefore, four sweetpotato accessions were evaluated during the 2012, 2013, and 2014  growing seasons at the Delaware State University research center. The specific objectives were: 1) evaluate the adaptability of four sweetpotato accessions under Delaware conditions; and 2) develop an organic production system to grow sweetpotato in response to soil and nutrient management. We conducted the field research on sandy loam soil pH with 6.8 in a randomized complete-block design with four accessions replicated three times.  'Birmingham' (V2) showed the highest yield (34833 kg·ha-1) followed by TUI-001 (V6) (31847 kg·ha-1), A-193-217 (V1) (28935 kg·ha-1), and TI-6008 (V4) (26481 kg·ha-1), respectively. Without using any chemicals, average storage root yield of all cultivars observed was higher than the US average yield (26223 kg·ha-1 in 2012 and 27478 kg·ha-1 in 2013) (NASS, 2013). Results imply that these accessions are of good potential to be evaluated in scaled-up organic production system.
See more of: Organic Horticulture 1 (Oral)
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