作物的近缘野生种是作物育种开拓新的抗病、优质、抗逆等基因的重要来源之一。甘薯的某些近缘野生种也具有甘薯所没有的种质基因。应用种间杂交技术将甘薯(Ipomoea)属野生种的优良种质导入甘薯,是甘薯育种的新途径。甘薯近缘野生种的研究和利用在国内外已日益受到重视。本世纪五十年代以来,日本、美国先后开展甘薯近缘种的收集和研究利用工作。在甘薯的起源、进化、分类和细胞遗传学等方面的研究取得了较大进展,在甘薯育种中应用,日本获得了显 Wild relatives of crops are one of the important sources of crop breeding which opens up new genes for resistance, quality and stress resistance. Some wild sweet potato species also have the sweet potato germplasm gene. Application of interspecific hybridization to the sweet potato (Ipomoea) wild species of good germplasm introduced sweet potato is a new way of sweet potato breeding. The research and utilization of wild relatives of sweet potato have been paid more and more attention at home and abroad. Since the fifties of this century, Japan and the United States have carried out the collection, research and utilization of sweet potato relatives. Great progress has been made in the research on the origin, evolution, classification and cytogenetics of sweet potato, and it has been applied in sweet potato breeding.