Zambia Agribusiness Society

For sweet potatoes, crop rotation is a must if you want a healthy harvest and more yield. Crop rotation is the practice of growing a different plant after the growing season of a particular crop. For example, you can grow sweet potatoes on your field this year, and then grow cabbage next year. Crop rotation is vital for several reasons. Different plants have different nutrient needs. The nutrient requirements of sweet potatoes are different from that of other plants. If you continue to grow sweet potatoes in a particular place continuously, the soil will be quickly depleted of the nutrients that sweet potatoes consume the most. If you rotate sweet potatoes with vegetables that have a different nutritional need like cabbage, the soil will have enough nutrients for sweet potatoes when you plant them again. Sweet potatoes are semi-heavy feeders. To retain nutrients in the soil, you should grow vegetables that are light or medium. Plants in the family legumes, which are also can f

Plant propagation is the art, science, and business of multiplying plants. Plant propagation is the method to increase the number of outstanding fruit and crop varieties in order to perpetuate their desirable qualities such as high production, large fruits, and excellent eating quality—those that command better market prices. Ways to propagate plants: Sexual : through the use of seeds (for papaya, mangosteen, and for root stocks for asexual propagation). Asexual : through the use of plant parts other than seeds. This does not involve the exchange of genetic material, so the process almost always produces plants that are identical to the parent. Advantage of asexual propagation: Plants are true-to-type. More rapid means of producing planting materials for crops such as cassava, sweet potato, and other root crops. Plants start fruiting in a shorter time than normal, and mature into smaller trees; hence they are easy to man