Video: Planting Chickasaw County Sweet Potato Beds

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HOULKA, Miss.(WCBI)–Some North Mississippi farmers are taking advantage of the beautiful spring weather to plant their sweet potato beds. Chickasaw is one of the Counties in the state producing the crop harvested usually around the first of September.

In Houlka, potato planting machines are rolling in the fields and as dirt is being diced up, there is already anticipation of a sweet harvest.

“The rain has effected some producers, certainly its been a little patchy. I know it slowed sweet potato bed planting just south of here in Calhoun County. But where we are today in Houlka we are still rolling,” said Stephen Meyers/MSU Sweet Potato Specialist.

“We was a little late getting started from the rest of them. We had some rain Monday but its moved out and the ground is working real good for us today,” said Jamie Earp/Sweet Potato Farmer.

Seed potatoes already sprouting from last year’s harvest are strategically planted in rows of tater beds.

“They’ll lay those on prepared ground apply a fertilizer and a fungicides to those potatoes, then cover them with about an inch of soil and black plastic,” said Stephen Meyers.

“It takes about four weeks before they’ll start popping through the ground. Then we’ll remove the plastic and put on some agri-bond they call it. A cloth-like material that helps keep moisture and humidity in. It helps the plant grow,” said Jamie Earp.

The plants that grow from the seedlings will be set out in another field. A process repeated at Earp Farms since 1967.

“Some of our producers have finished this process already, some have still a little ways to go. Typically March is when it ramps up and usually trickles into April a little bit,” said Stephen Meyers.

Earp has been planting sweet potatoes on his family farm since 1995 when he and his brother took over their father’s business.