Subject: sweet potatoes as forage

From: "Rene and Lorraine van Raders" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 4 Jan 1998 21:05:13 -0800

Hi all, especially Dan

We grow six varieties of sweet potatoes in inner zones.   We've found they
love well drained soils and doubt they would persist in really wet areas
with foraging as no tubers would be developed (I think they would rot). 
But it's worth a small cautious trial, I suppose.  They certainly persist
in damp areas as vines when there's no grazing.

We've attempted to establish sweet potatoes in outer zones and offer the
following experiences and thoughts.

We were unsuccessful as geese would overgraze the tops and native rats and
another native animal (the bandicoot) would eat any tubers.   I think any
success with sweet potato as forage would depend on how palatable it was to
the animal in comparison to other forage available or how stock was
rotated.   Sweet potato can easily be eradicated or nearly so by heavy
browsing.   Part of our problem was that the potatoes never got established
enough to develop a great network of roots.  Perhaps leaving the field
ungrazed for the first year or two might make a big difference, or very
short grazing periods, or you might have refuge areas that cattle were
denied access to, from which the potato could again spread as grazing
pressure was removed.

(must say I've never seen it in pastures during any of our travels through
asia, either)

Hope this is of some help

Cheers Rene (and Lorraine)

---

From: YankeePerm <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 4 Jan 1998 12:15:03 EST

In a message dated 1/4/98 6:17:28 AM, [email-masked] wrote:

<< We've found they

in damp areas as vines when there's no grazing.>>

Well, one grows slips by putting the tuber in water.  So, like their closely
related cousins, they do grow in wet areas.  I agree that tuber formation is
unlikely.   

I am sure that they would be favored over all other vegetation except maybe
the maypop (Passiflora incarnata) which seems to be real yummy to the steer in
there now.  

We do have the pasture divided for short rotations.  Moreover, all pasture
plants need to be able to tolerate wet to flooded conditions as well as
drought.  In any case, since we have all these little pencil-sized to pinky
sized roots, it will be an interesting experiment.  I've always grown sweet
potato through mulch so how it competes with grass is another issue.  At a
minimum, the plant will expend the food stored in the roots to make forage and
we will get that much back.  It would be easier to feed the undersized roots
to the steer, admitedly my first impulse, but then I was thinking about water
spinanch and also how most of our pasture plants are slow growing.  

As we discuss this I get another thought, for Next year, which is to use sweet
potato as a nurse crop for legumes.  The pasure was a real mess when we got
here and we still haven't cut half of it even once.  There is so much dead
organic matter when one mows that I've taken to raking it into piles to rot or
not, depending upon when I want them for mulch or litter (and can get out
there to pick them up as it gets pretty slick>)  When a pile is moved, there
is a bare spot with a bit of compost on it.  This little bit makes a big
difference and it would be a good time to get some legumes and other forage
plants going.  (We are very short on legumes in the pasture--a few scarce
species of annuals, no prennials.)  This would be a good time to add the sweet
potato slips, since they would have little competition in getting going.  I
have one spot I can try this year.

Thanks for your input.  By the way, sweet potato does grow wild in Hawaii.
I've seen it there in abandoned farmland along with many other crops, wild
chickens, and feral pigs.  Apparently the pigs, even, do not erradicate. Of
course the pigs are hunted pretty heavily by the Hawaiians.  So it does hold
its own in a non-ruminant environment, at least.

For Mother Earth, Dan Hemenway, Yankee Permaculture Publications (since 1982),
Elfin Permaculture workshops, lectures, Permaculture Design Courses,
consulting and permaculture designs (since 1981), and now correspondence
courses via email.  One is now underway.  Next Live program:  Paraguay,
8/10-22/98. Internships available. Copyright, 1997, Dan & Cynthia Hemenway,
P.O. Box 52, Sparr FL 32192 USA  [email-masked]  

We don't have time to rush.

A list by topic of all Yankee Permaculture titles may be found at
http://csf.colorado.edu/perma/ypc_catalog.html