Growing red sweet potatoes in Nghe An yields 360 million VND/hectare.

(Baonghean.vn) - The area planted with sweet potatoes in Nghe An province currently reaches 3,490.3 hectares, grown in many districts such as Yen Thanh, Nghi Loc, Tan Ky, Nam Dan, Dien Chau... High-yielding and high-quality varieties such as K4, Japanese Red, Japanese Yellow… are currently selling well. One hectare of sweet potatoes yields approximately 360-400 million VND per crop over a period of about 3 months.

Red sweet potatoes yield high productivity in Tien Thanh - Yen Thanh.

Red sweet potatoes are planted during the winter-spring season, starting in October of the lunar calendar and harvested in February of the lunar calendar. In Tien Thanh commune (Yen Thanh district), people previously cultivated two rice crops per year, but since the experimental planting of red sweet potatoes on land previously used for two rice crops showed high economic efficiency, people decided to switch to growing sweet potatoes during the winter-spring season.

Currently, Tien Thanh commune has 45 hectares of red sweet potato cultivation, with a yield of 50-60 tons/ha. The goal is to include red sweet potatoes as a key crop in the winter-spring season. With a selling price of 6-7 thousand VND/kg at the field, one sao (approximately 1000 square meters) of sweet potatoes yields a profit of 3 million VND after deducting expenses. If farmers sell retail, they can get 9,000-10,000 VND/kg, resulting in a profit of approximately 4 million VND per sao, three times higher than rice cultivation (rice cultivation yields nearly 1 million VND per sao per season).

The entire Yen Thanh district currently has over 100 hectares of sweet potatoes. The red sweet potato variety mainly grown by farmers today is KLC266, which was obtained from the North Central Agricultural Science and Technology Institute.

The red sweet potato crop has just been harvested for both leaves and tubers.

According to information from the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, the sweet potato production in Nghe An province is estimated at 16,385.7 tons in 2015; the yield reached 65.8 tons/ha.

Sweet potatoes are a crop grown for their tubers and leaves, and are very familiar to farmers in various regions. Over the years, introducing the KLC 266 red sweet potato variety for cultivation during the winter-spring season has yielded high returns for farmers.

Viet Hung