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Allen Rose of J.B. Rose Farms |
NC SweetPotato Grower Profile: Allen Rose of J.B. Rose Farms
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 J.B. Rose Farms of Nash County grows about 5,000 acres of cash crops, along with a chicken rearing and egg laying contract operation with Braswell Milling.
J.B. Rose started farming after WWII with a 3 acre tobacco allotment gift from his father. With money saved while in the Army, J.B. bought a truck and started custom hauling tobacco to cigarette company warehouses. He then began doing custom production and harvesting work for other farmers, in addition to growing his small tobacco crop. As tenant farming subsided, J.B. started raising tobacco for landowners in the area, renting and then buying some of their allotment.
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Allen Rose
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| Rose’s three sons, Jimmy (deceased at the age of 32), David and Allen kept farming with their dad. While David earned an ag and biological engineering degree from NC State, Allen, knowing he wanted to farm, took on a full-time role after graduating from high school. Today, Allen looks after the production of all the crops grown on the farm – 450 acres of sweetpotatoes, 350 acres of flue-cured tobacco, 200 acres of peanuts, 2,800 acres of cotton with rest of the acreage in soybeans, as well as the poultry operation. David looks after the business side, serving as a board member of the USDA/NC Farm Service Agency. |
 Allen started growing sweetpotatoes in 1983. While they have a packing line--selling their crop through a broker--the Rose’s sell most of their crop to nearby packer-shippers. Allen grows both the Beauregard (mostly B-14) and Hernandez sweetpotato varieties, buying micro-propagated plants from a nearby certified seed producer. |
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Allen, 45, says the key to growing a good crop is to select the right land, use a good crop rotation, select a good seed stock and follow a good fertilization program. Allen plants his sweetpotatoes in May and harvests his crop 90 to 100 days later, when most are in the #1 class.
Over the years, Allen has seen a lot of difference in fertilization and insect control problems when they switched from the jewel to the beauregard variety. The beauregard requires less fertilization and more insect management. "Back in the 80's, sweetpotatoes were the easiest crop we grew--transplanted, plowed and fertilized them and made a crop. "The J.B. Rose Farms cropping operation has 10 full-time employees and uses about 65 migrant workers during the harvesting season. Another five workers look after the poultry operation.
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Allen, who along with all other sweetpotato growers in the state, pays a $15 per acre assessment to the NC SweetPotato Commission, which is charged with promoting the consumption of the crop nation-wide. Allen, who’s been serving for two years as an elected board member of the Commission, says, “I think the Commission is doing a good job using our assessment dollars in promoting our sweetpotato crop. Nothing’s any good if we can’t sell it. It’s not easy deciding how to spend those dollars effectively.”
Allen’s favorite way to eat sweetpotatos is in a pie.
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Allen, 45, and his wife, Sheree, have a son, Charles, who will graduate from NC State in December, and a daughter, Allison, who is attending Barton College. Allen's wife, Sheree, and also David's wife, Cherie, look after all the books and handle the payroll in an office in back of the J.B. Rose convenience store that’s been on the farm since 1972.
Today the complex includes grain bins and 21,000 sq. foot of sweetpotato storage and a packing house. On J.B.’s original small farm now sits chicken houses, the tobacco curing barns, a modern farm shop with a storage area and a barnyard full of John Deere tractors and farm equipment.
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