WILSON, NC — Jerome Vick, head of Vick Family Farms here, has been farming for 40 years, and growing sweet potatoes for 30 years. Vick’s practiced eye noted that a dry spell in the Wilson area in August, beginning the first 10 days after transplanting vines to the field, meant a 50 percent reduction in yield for the sweet potato crop here.

“Don’t get me wrong,” he emphasized. “The quality of this year’s sweet potato crop will be good, although the yield will be down because of the dry spell. Even a camel in the desert needs water every once in a while.” The dry spell made the 2015 sweet potato crop sweeter, he said, adding that “they will store better, also.”

Vick Family Farms expects to export half of its 2015 sweet potato crop, mainly to Europe. Statewide, North Carolina sweet potato growers export 20 percent of their crops. The boxes in this photo are destined for Germany and also bear the German words for sweet potatoes.Cool, wet weather delayed budding and transplanting of the vines into the field, and then the hottest June on record delayed the harvest, Vick observed, which usually is in full swing by Labor Day. “That’s not happening this year,” he said. “We’re fortunate to have made it through the dry spell by irrigating our fields. I’ve noticed that the harder we work, the luckier we are,” he said.

When it comes to sweet potatoes, he’s become a fan. Three decades ago, Vick began planting sweet potatoes on five acres. Today, he’s planting 1,000 acres of sweet potatoes, and Vick Family Farms recently expanded refrigerated storage space to cure and store sweet potatoes.

“We used research at North Carolina State University to design our expanded storage facility. The research showed that horizontal refrigerated storage maintained sweet potato quality for a year or more,” he said. Vick uses the federal H2A program to import contract seasonal laborers. “We need immigration laws that allow more seasonal workers,” he stated. “We either import our workers or we import our food.”   His wife, Diane, trains and supervises the labor force.

Half of this year’s Vick’s sweet potato crop will be exported for sale abroad, mainly to Europe, he said. Sales to processing plants that put sweet potatoes in cans are “a brand new market,” he noted, along with plants that use sweet potatoes for juice drinks, pet food, chips, fries, and biscuit mixes, not to mention vodka and whiskey. “These plants can use potatoes that otherwise would go to waste,” he said, “because of their size and shape.”

How can supermarkets sell more sweet potatoes? “Put them out on display around the store,” Vick urges. “We did research in supermarkets and found that the more different products you display, the more you sell.”