[mjg000]

I have had a shop bought sweet potato sitting in water on my kitchen window sill since January or February.  It has gradually grown a long white root with hairy side growth.  In recent days ( maybe a week or so ) it has started to grow shoots as well but they all seem quite close together and mainly below the water line, ie on the lower part of the sweet potato but are definitely starting to turn upwards whereas the root is definitely downwards.  What happens next, does each shoot become a slip or does it need the root and the new shoots?  How long will it take?

[JayG]

The slips are the shoots, and when they are long and strong enough to safely handle are simply snapped off the tuber and planted in moist compost - they root incredibly quickly.

Attached pic shows two of mine potted up next to the mother tuber in 2011.

[Kleftiwallah]

I was under the impression that these plants had been 'heat treated' to stop them sprouting,  I shall have to go and grab a couple to try.

Thanks for that info.  Cheers,  Tony.

[JayG]

Some folk have had difficulties getting theirs to root and shoot, which has led to the suspicion that supermarket tubers may have been sprayed to inhibit growth - I soaked my sweet potato tuber overnight in a bucket of cold water in the hope of removing any chemical contamination, but of course I have no way of knowing whether that was actually necessary or not.

[tosca100]

I used supermarket tubers, but they did take months to shoot. I think 'serious'growers use growlights and the like to make plenty of slips early on. One of them didn't shoot at all but had two pointed ends and I couldn't decide which was the rooty end, so cut it in half and laid it in compost (runs off to have a look-see if anything happened....)

[3759allen]

i find it safer to put the slips into a glass of water to produce roots before putting into compost, maybe i just like to see what it's doing.

if the slips are appearing from underneath the water the potato is upside down. however i have found this is better as by time the slips are big enough to pick off they will have already produced roots. i can never tell which way is which with these and just put them in the water.

i have struggled getting mine to shoot over the winter (hoping for a good early start) and the ones that did shoot seemed to die off.

i have now got 10 potato's going and less than half of them are sprouting despite all of them sending out roots, it looks like i will get 12 or more shoots in total from them. fingers crossed.