This summer has been another year of extreme heat.
There were many days in Iwate Prefecture where temperatures exceeded 30 degrees, and vegetable production was extremely difficult.
As midsummer passes and September approaches, summer vegetables gradually turn into autumn vegetables. The vegetable team discussed whether it was time to do some trial digging for sweet potatoes for harvest.

When we tried digging them up in mid-September, they had grown to a size that was just right for harvesting, so we harvested them until the end of September. This year's sweet potatoes, both "Beni Azuma" and "Beni Haruka", were large in size and were harvested. It's a relief to see them growing well despite the many hot days.

Sweet potatoes are sweet even if you eat them immediately after harvesting, but they become sweeter the longer they are left to sit. This is called ripening, and the reason for this is that when they are harvested in September and the temperature drops towards winter, the sugar (starch) inside the sweet potato turns into a sweeter sugar (sucrose).

We will ship the products after storing them for one month after harvest, so please look forward to it.

Agricultural Department
Keitaro Nakamura