The author studied the effects of nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and potassium (K) application rates (N 0, 60, 120, 180 kg/hm2;P2O5 0, 45, 90, 135 kg/hm2;K2O 0, 90, 180, 270 kg/hm2) on the growth and yield of sweet potato varie-ty Quanshu No.9 in red soil dryland.The results showed that N fertilizer had good promotive effects on the vegetative growth and yield of sweet potato, and the leaf chlorophyll content (SPAD value), main stem length, number of primary branches, primary branch length, leaf number of whole plant and tuber yield of sweet potato all increased with the increase in N fertilizer application rate.P fertilizer had little effect on the vegetative growth of sweet potato , and there was no significant difference in vegetative growth indexes among different P application rate treatments;but P fertilizer had an obvious impact on the tuber yield of sweet po-tato, and the tuber yield revealed a parabolic change trend when P fertilizer application rate increased.Applying 0~180 kg/hm2 K fertilizer had little effect on the vegetative growth of sweet potato , while applying 270 kg/hm2 K fertilizer had a certain inhibitory effect on the vegetative growth of sweet potato; the application of K fertilizer helped to improve sweet potato yield , which linearly increased with the increase in K fertilizer application rate .