Late summer and early fall launches sweet potato shipments from several 
states. Before I go any further, sweet potatoes are not among the leaders when it comes to good produce rates. But neither are other basic “hardware” items such as potatoes and onions. There’s a reason berries and vegetable trucking rates are better; they are more perishable.
North Carolina is the leading shipper of sweet potatoes in the USA. The Tar Heel state has slashed acreage by 5,000 acres this season after a disaterous overproduction a year ago. The old crop has been finally clean up and you will now be loading sweet potatoes from the new crop, which means a fresher product with which receivers should be more pleased. Happy receivers result in fewer claims and rejections of loads. One other point. Receivers don’t care for green sweet potatoes. They prefer product that has been cured. Most sweet potatoes loads should be cured entering October.
Mississippi and Louisiana have been irrigating dry sweet potato fields, at least until Hurrican Issac arrived.
Louisana sweet potatoes apparently dodged the budget from Issac. Farms in southwest and central Louisiana received about an inch of rain from Isaac, and farms in northeast Louisiana between 4 and 4 1/2 inches. Harvest may be delayed up to week to allow fields to dry out.
No word on yet on how Mississippi sweet potatoe shipments may have been affected.