Canada’s sweet potato production bottlenecked, says production report

If Canada started growing its own sweet potato slips using a shorter season variety instead of awaiting the late arrival of ones with a longer growing season produced in the US, there could be unprecedented growth of the industry in this country.

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An updated best practices document for domestic growers was issued recently through the work of PhD research scientist Dr. Valerio Primomo at Vineland Research & Innovation Centre, together with Derek Pearson.

Ontario is the largest sweet potato producer in Canada and most growers obtain their slips from Orleans in Louisiana but they can’t get enough material quickly enough at the beginning of the growing season, Primomo told Ontario Farmer recently. The alternative is the shorter season offered by the Radiance sweet potato variety but although it was developed in conjunction with Louisiana State University to mature in just 107 days, there is a shortage of supply of this material even though it can be produced in Canadian greenhouses.

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“That’s the bottleneck,” he said.

Canada’s overall production rose to 16,993 metric tons of sweet potatoes in 2022 from 12,247, a decade earlier – but the market demand in this county it much higher. In 2022 there were 81,951 tonnes from the US imported into Canada.

The Radiance variety has been around since 2018 but there “isn’t a lot of acreage in Ontario yet,” Primomo noted. Producing slips domestically in greenhouses for growing tubular potatoes in fields just isn’t producing enough seed material. In the US such slips can be grown directly in the soil in the much warmer US location.

Primomo has been working on the project since 2011 at Vineland.

“We’re trying to expand production across Canada,” he said.

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Possible production areas outside of Ontario include Saskatchewan, Alberta, Manitoba and Quebec where there is some interest in the Radiance variety, he said.

“Ontario growers want to test it but can’t get enough material,” he stressed. That’s because at this point there is still no Canadian slip production industry. Nova Scotia has been growing the seeding slips and growing Radiance sweet potatoes for 10 years but it can only supply eastern Canada and doesn’t have enough for elsewhere, the researcher said.

He also noted the new variety is suitable for growing right across Canada.

In addition to filling the Canadian market with sweet potatoes grown right here, there is the opportunity to export them to Europe where consumption has doubled in the past five years, says Vineland’s updated report on producing seeding slips in domestic greenhouses.

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It also states that “a number of Canadian growers and propagators are interested in seizing this opportunity by producing slips to supply local sweet potato growers. Sweet potato growers in turn will have access to a new source of sweet potato slips providing the following advantages:

• avoiding deterioration due to transportation and border control delays;
• available in time for the Canadian planting season; and
• acclimatized for planting in cool Canadian conditions.”

The updated report also provides specifics for undertaking greenhouse slip production, including the following:

“Beds can be built to any desired length, however considerations should be given to the width of each bed as access will be required throughout the growing season to scout for pests and diseases, monitor for nutrient deficiencies and ensure proper irrigation. Bed width and aisle space are also important considerations since workers will need access to each sides of the beds to harvest slips

When the plant canopy is 35 to 40 cm the slips can be harvested, ready for shipment to growers in Canada by the third week in May

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