Could Sweet Potatoes Provide Sweet Opportunities for New York?

Mohammad Irfan

and Gaurav Moghe

Cornell University

Sweet potatoes are a superfood rich with vitamins, minerals and fiber.

They’re also a great source for high-value phytochemicals, such as carotenoids and anthocyanins. These chemicals impart various combinations of white, orange and purple to the crop’s flesh and skin, contributing to their popularity.

Sweet potatoes are primarily grown in southern states — North Carolina, Louisiana, Mississippi — that offer ideal growing conditions, infrastructure and established markets.

In northeastern states, including New York, sweet potatoes are undergrown due to a combination of climatic, agronomic and economic factors. Could management practices and selected crop varieties be enough to overcome these deterrents? We at Cornell University are trying to find out.

Sweet potato thrives under a long, warm growing season (90150 frost-free days) in well-drained soil, ideally with temperatures above 70 degrees Fahrenheit for proper root development and filing.

New York’s growing season, however, is relatively short and cool. In addition, early season frost can be detrimental to the growth and survival of slips while late season frost can damage the fully formed roots, causing rot.

Slips may also need to be imported from southern suppliers, presenting a bottleneck in the process.

Despite these challenges, sweet potato farming is becoming increasingly popular in New York and other northern states, and the New York City restaurant industry is a great market for high-quality sweet potatoes.

In addition to their value in retail markets and various food preparations, the high root biomass makes them well-suited for use in health foods, nutraceutical, pharmaceutical, cosmetics and chemical industries. During cultivation, not all harvested sweet potatoes meet size or appearance standards for fresh consumption or consumer preferences, and such roots — instead of being culled or used as animal feed — can still be effectively utilized for extracting high-value phytochemicals.

Sweet potato growers in New York could potentially tap into this market, given the presence of many health food and chemical companies in Northeastern U.S. Our evaluations of carotenoids from orange-flesh sweet potato (rich in beta-carotene) and the anthocyanins from purple-flesh varieties, showed high concentrations when grown at New York field sites. These are colorful antioxidants in high demand. Furthermore, the state’s cooler climate helped limit the crop’s common pests and diseases, reducing the need for pesticides and postharvest chemical treatments, providing an advantage over southern states in organic and niche markets.

This is a ripe opportunity given recent focus on non-toxic food dyes, and it highlights the economic potential of New York-grown sweet potatoes for traditional and novel markets.

Through research and Extension, enabled by support from USDA, we at Cornell University are building up our understanding of New York-grown sweet potatoes.

Field trials performed in eastern New York by Cornell Extension

More SWEET POTATOES, page D6

White, orange and purple fleshed sweet potato varieties.

Submitted photos

A sweet potato harvest in Geneva, N.Y.

Sweet potatoes grow on a raised bed during a Cornell research study.

Continued from D4

vegetable specialist Chuck Bornt identified raised beds mulched with black plastic — which significantly increases the yield and improves the tuber quality — as an effective approach. This practice not only helps maintain warmer soil temperatures but also improves water drainage and reduces the risk of root rot, a common issue for sweet potato.

The field trials also identified specific sweet potato varieties suited for growth in New York. In our lab at Ithaca, we are trying to find ways to improve sweet potato robustness to cool temperatures and changes in soil types, possibly enabling earlier planting and a longer growing season.

For example, we are experimenting with mycorrhizal fungi to assess their potential as organic biofertilizers in enhancing the sweet potato’s cold tolerance and root filling.

Preliminary results from controlled environment studies and field trials at our Geneva research site have been encouraging, and further molecular exploration is underway.

We are also working on characterizing the natural chemical defenses of the roots against pests and pathogens — a compound class called resin glycosides.

We would love to work more with growers in New York to further explore ways to improve the resilience of sweet potatoes to various environmental conditions. To contact us, email Mohammad Irfan at mi239@cornell.edu or Gaurav Moghe at gdm67@cornell.edu.

Sweet potatoes grow in a greenhouse at Cornell University.

Submitted