Growing sweet potato

How to grow SWEET POTATO

 

Hello friends today i want to share the topic on how to grow sweet potato by using the things that we get around and to grow it in soil or vertical farming. Let's first take a look at the things that we need:

1.Sweet Potato.

2.Small bottle or Plastic Glass.

3.Water.

                        Now lets take a look at the basics. First select a sweet potato that you want to grow in your garden. I bought a potato which is 8cm in length and 3.5cm diameter on an average. There is no necessity that the potato must have same dimensions, you can select any healthy potato. Even a smallest potato that you can get is enough. But make sure it is free from all infections. Select the container in which you will suspend the potato such that it's diameter is equal or greater than the potato.

             I selected a bottle and removed a part of its mouth such that my potato fits in it easily. Make sure that 70% of potato is inside the container. If the diameter of the container is greater than the  diameter of potato use a tooth pick to act as support. Pierce the tooth pick such that only 30% of the potato is outside the bottle or glass. Now its time to add the medium to the container. Here we are using water as germinating medium. When we immerse 70% of potato in to the water, the part of the potato which is immersed in water starts developing roots and the upper portion which is exposed to air and environment starts developing shoots.

         In the above shown figure you can see that the tiny roots were developed on bottom of the potato which is in water and the wider part which is above the water developed long shoots. It is not necessary that one potato develops only one set of root and shoot. Here in my case my potato developed 8 medium to long length roots and 5 shoots which are on an average of 6cm of length.

Warning:

  Never let the water in container gain heat. Keep the water as cool   as possible as the heat causes newly developed roots to suffocate and die.

Keep changing the water in the container regularly thrice or more than thrice a week.

Make sure that your water is free from chemicals like chlorine which are used to kill bacteria in the water.

• Expose the arrangement to partial sunlight.
• Use the water that is freshly obtained from ground if possible rather than the water from a purifier or filter unless and until you are sure that ground water in your area contains harmful chemicals like fluorine and lead. It is because this ground water contains soluble minerals dissolved in it which promote plant growth.

 

              The plant can be allowed to grow in a water dependent controlled environment like that used in vertical farming or can be planted in well prepared soil for further growth. Once the shoots start growing allow the shoots to spread on the soil and you can partially cover the stem in soil so that that part of the stem starts developing new roots as the number of roots increase the plant gains strength and produce more potatoes or even potatoes of larger size.

             My main aim is to grow this plant by using vertical farming methodologies. I am going to transfer it to a aquaponics system and observe its growth and development. So this is it for now and I will post my advances in growing the sweet potato plant in AQUAPONICS system in my next post.

A brief introduction to vertical farming

Introduction to Vertical Farming

Hello friends, iam going to start a project on vertical farming. As a part of my project, i wanted to share the things from time to time with you so that i can interact with the other buddies and know their views and ideas on this project.

             As we know that day by day the world population is increasing as a result most of the land area is used for domestic and industrial purposes. In order to meet these requirements even agricultural area is converted in to domestic land. Due to this the prices of the food products increased dramatically. Now a days cultivation of crops by traditional methods is becoming very difficult. As a result there is a great necessity to modify this methods. Now a days green houses are playing a major role in cultivating small crops like leafy vegitables and other small plants.

   A step forward in green house cultivation led to new method that is "VERTICAL FARMING". In vertical farming these are the important points according to my knowledge:

1. It does not require soil which prevents the diseases that spread through soil.

2. It uses less water i.e about 80% to 90% of the water that is required to cultivate the same crop on land.

3. Even though the initial investment seem to be a bit high, the returns or earnings from this method are enormous i.e. 50 to 80 percent more than the maximum amount that can be gained.

4. It requires less labour and with growing innovation in smart monitoring technologies the need for regular monitoring is almost completely eliminated.

5. The taste of the vegetables or fruits will remain the same independent of season given the greatness of artificial climatic conditions created inside the farm house which improves the quality of crop.

                       Apart from the things i have mentioned above there are many advantages of vertical farming. Comming to technical part, the vertical farm is nothing but a single or multi floor building where plants will be grown in a specially arranged racks. As i mentioned above that in vertical farming plants are not cultivated in soil the actually use the following:

                                                                                                                 1. Aeroponics.

                                                                                                                 2. Hydroponics.

                                                                                                                 3. Aquaponics.

       These methods will be explained in my next post in detail as it is only an introduction.

They also use specialised lighting to facilitate the plants with appropriate lighting. Recent advances in research have indicated that the plants grow faster and produce good yield when they are exposed to light containing more BLUE and RED spectrum. Turns out that RED and BLUE colour spectrum lights have enough energy to carry out photosynthesis at a higher rate.

         None of the products or by-products produced in these vertical farms are trown out as waste they can be recycled for the development and the natural resources like rainwater, sun light etc can be effectively used by making necessary developments gradually.

  

No presence of insects or pests from

 surroundings which damage the crop. 

No requirement of pesticides due to abscence of insects or pests.

        This the area which is to be adopted and implemented to benifit the farmers and people. This will be the future of farming i.e. "Vertical farming is the Next Generation of Farming".

        The complete process and methodologies will be explained in the up coming posts individually in detail.Thank You.