Your doing it all wrong. Look up how to grow slips. I'm sure there's plenty of info already printed

Boy, that was unhelpful advice. I would try putting the top part of the slip that broke in water and see if it roots.

Here's a link regarding sweet potato slips.

Here is a link that might be useful: Sweet potato slips

I agree, finish snapping off the top of that slip and stick it in water... Maybe put the bottom part in also, maybe it will keep going too. Sounds to me like you're doing things in a normal manner.

I agree with booberry.
It is not the way my father did it, he used sand, half covering the herizonal potatoes. The slips would root in the sand, sometimes the root mass was bigger then the slip.
But any grade school teacher knows how to grow sweet potatoes in water & you do not need to check as often, as the sand.

g'day neptune,

dunno if i'd go as far as to say any method is wrong, we all seek and use what works for us in our gardening exploits, the broken slip should still root maybe even the top bit might? can't see that there is any loss, for me we cut the piece of tuber that has the slip instead of breaking the slip off.

anyhow have a look this method has never failed.

len

Here is a link that might be useful: lens growing sweet spuds and pines

Gently remove the top part of the slip and fix the bottom part of it in the soil.Top of the top part will have the shoot. Cut off the shoot carefully.Fix the lower part of the slip also in the soil. Hopefully both will root in about two weeks.

Thanks for your helpful replies, l_james, booberry85, sunnibel7, jolj, len, and chaman. I'm glad to know that my broken slip doesn't seem to be a total loss. :)

I had looked at your helpful link before too, Len. There seem to be a lot of different methods out there. I didn't know whether breaking off part of the tuber as well was essential, or whether it was better to stick the newly broken off slip directly into soil than to let it sit in a water a few days first to develop some roots.

Oh, well--I guess all roads lead to sweet potatoes. :)