With most North Carolina farms growing diverse crops, it's hard to pinpoint a solid start date for the harvest of North Carolina sweet potatoes, according to Steven Ceccarelli, the owner of Farm Fresh Produce Inc., based in Faison, NC.

Ceccarelli said Sept. 5 that about 10-20 percent of the sweet potato harvest was complete. But many growers also harvest tobacco, and from a farm management and labor point of view, tobacco harvest would precede sweet potatoes. Farmers of peanuts or other crops would have still other harvest schedules.

But for Ceccarelli, an early start is important, and he planned to be the season's first exporter of cured sweet potatoes. "We will have cured potatoes this weekend," which would be Sept. 6, he said.

The curing process can take between two and six weeks, depending on variables such as ambient temperature and humidity. The two-week process is a "quick cure" he said. "It takes a month for a full cure, but six weeks if you have unfavorable conditions."

Sweet potato curing rooms treat the roots with heat and high humidity. The procedure tightens the skin, which in turn tightens the inside flesh.

When the curing is done, "we flip a switch to turn the rooms into storages."

This year Farm Fresh is increasing its volume of Orleans, which is a new variety in North Carolina. A large part of Ceccarelli's sweet potato volume is sold overseas, where there is quite a bit of interest in the Orleans.

Most of Ceccarelli's export volume goes to the United Kingdom, Holland, France, Ireland, Italy, Spain and Denmark. Russians have also been Farm Fresh customers, but Ceccarelli is expecting that strained U.S. relations with Russia will likely interfere with that trade for now.

Farm Fresh has hired Bobby Daughtry as its new export manager. Daughtry's presence will free others on the Farm Fresh staff to focus on domestic sales.

Last year's sweet potato crop had limited volume, so Ceccarelli didn't fulfill his preliminary plans of building Farm Fresh's domestic market in 2013. To have done so would have "irritated" new domestic customers with short orders while also not sitting well with sweet potato-hungry international customers, he said.

This year's sweet potato supplies will be bigger after a good growing season, so the timing is right to now develop the firm's domestic market for sweet potatoes.

Farm Fresh is a shipper and exporter of a wide variety of fresh produce commodities. But from Ceccarelli's North Carolina farm, another large-volume item — Napa cabbage — will be shipped when New Jersey growers are out of the deal.