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Home > Featured Stories > Innovation and Discovery > November 2007 > Sweet Potatoes - Not Just for Thanksgiving > 'Sweet Caroline' Brightens Gardens and Landscapes

'Sweet Caroline' Variety Brightens Landscapes

In this project we were more interested in developing pretty foliage, not pretty storage roots, which is what people typically think of when they think of sweet potatoes.

Dr. Craig Yencho, NC State Department of Horticultural Science

By Keith Nichols, News Services

About 10 years ago, NC State Horticultural Scientist Kenneth Pecota was using a bright green vine as a plot marker - the dividing line between experimental plots in a field. He liked the plant and began a breeding program to see what might develop.

The resulting work led to the creation of the "Sweet Caroline" series of ornamental sweet potato vines. After initial resistance from nurseries, the ornamental plant is a huge success, frequently turning up in landscapes and as houseplants.

Four varieties were introduced initially in 2002; 10 more have followed. "We weren't very creative initially in our naming of the individual varieties, instead we have tried to brand all of them as the "Sweet Caroline" series," said NC State's Craig Yencho, one of the nation's leading sweet potato researchers. "We called them 'Sweet Caroline Green' 'Sweet Caroline Light Green,' 'Sweet Caroline Bronze,' and 'Sweet Caroline Purple.'"

It's not only the color but the leaf shape and plant habit that makes the Sweet Caroline series so popular. And we've gotten more creative with the names -- "Bewitched" and the Sweet Caroline Sweetheart color series have followed the 2002 releases. The border series is next, and there are flowering and several variegated varieties in the pipeline.

The twist to this particular story is that the breeding program went against the conventional wisdom that you don't bring in "wild" varieties.
 
"They're part of the morning glory family," Yencho said. "And the morning glory is a prolific bloomer. What we've done is selectively breed a wide range of sweet potato varieties and then we selected them in such a way as to produce a great variation in color and shape of the leaf. So, in this project we were more interested in developing pretty foliage, not pretty storage roots, which is what people typically think of when they think of sweet potatoes.

"Typically, what happens is that when you breed plants you don't bring in less adapted varieties, unless you really need them because they tend to cause the whole thing to collapse. Just the opposite has happened with ornamental sweet potato vines. The wild varieties have given us the range and the beauty of the plant that we see in the Sweet Caroline series. And, we've been able to take some of the lessons learned on the ornamental side over to the food-crop varieties."

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