Wound healing, keeping quality, and compositional changes during curing and storage of sweet potatoes

California’s mild climate has led to handling and storage practices with sweet potatoes that do not necessarily provide optimum conditions for wound healing. Experiments were conducted during a four-year period with three varieties on San Joaquin Valley farms to determine whether a curing period in a warm house, such as is customary in other areas, would favor wound healing and reduce storage losses and quality changes. A two-week curing period in a warm house, with a temperature of around 85° F and high relative humidity, was compared with a similar period in a field pile, the method commonly used in California, and with direct placement in an unheated storage house.