Peanuts
Peanut, also known as groundnut (Arachis hypogaea),
Have you ever wondered what peanuts grow on? And how? Yet we stuff them down our mouths without a second's thought. Do they hang from trees? Do we collect them like runner beans? Curiously peanuts are not 'nuts' but legume pods developed under the ground. Hence it's classification here 'under subterranean parts' according to De Candolle (who wrote 'Origin of Cultivated Plants' ) More on Growing Peanuts
Humans have cultivated, and eaten peanuts for thousands of years, because they are easy to grow, flavoursomel, nutritious, and transportable. Few new world plants have integrated themselves into the recipes, and cultures of the old world as determinedly as the tiny peanut.
It is now a crop of global importance widely grown in the tropics and subtropics, being important to both smallholder and large commercial producers. It is classified as both a grain and legume,[2] and, because of its high oil content, an oil crop.[3] World annual production is about 46 million tonnes per year.
They are a member of the leguminosae. Like peas. they can 'fix' nitrogen so need less fertiliser and good in rotations.
The botanical definition of a "nut" is "a fruit whose ovary wall becomes very hard at maturity" Using this criterion, the peanut is not a nut,[5] but rather a legume. However, for culinary purposes and in common English language usage, peanuts are usually referred to as nuts.
First Cultivation....
A. duranensis andA. ipaensis chromosomes combined by hybridization and doubling, to form an anamphidiploid or allotetraploid. Genetic analysis suggests this hybridization event probably occurred only once and gave rise to A. monticola, a wild form of peanut that occurs in a few restricted locations in northwestern Argentina
7,600 years old. These may be pods from a wild species that was in cultivation, or A. hypogaea in the early phase of domestication.[13] They were found in Peru, where dry climatic conditions are favorable to the preservation of organic material. Almost certainly, peanut cultivation antedated this at the center of origin where the climate is moister. Many pre-Columbian cultures, such as the Moche, depicted peanuts in their art.[14] Cultivation was well established in Mesoamerica before the Spanish arrived.
From this primary center of origin, cultivation spread and formed secondary and tertiary centers of diversity in Peru, Ecuador, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay. Over time, thousands of peanut landraces evolved; these are classified into six botanical varieties and two subspecies
The conquistadors found the tlalcacahuatl (the plant's Nahuatl name, whence Mexican Spanish cacahuate, Castillian Spanish cacahuete, and French cacahuète) being offered for sale in the marketplace of Tenochtitlan. The peanut was later spread worldwide by European traders.
After Portuguese explorers arrived in Brazil in 1500, they carried peanuts from South America to Western Africa. Peanuts were quickly accepted by African growers due to the similarity of peanut plants to the native bambara groundnut. Bambara groundnuts, and peanuts are both subterranean legumes. Peanuts largely replaced bamara in Africa Cultivation is now very widespread in tropical and subtropical regions. In West Africa,
Early Spanish galleons introduced peanuts to the Pacific Islands, the Philippines, and Indonesia. By the early 1600's, peanuts had arrived in Malaysia, Vietnam, China, and Japan. India acquired the peanut from several routes in the 18th century: from Africa to Western India, from Manila to South India, from China to Bengal.
1769 is the earliest documented account of peanuts in the North American British colonies. Peanuts were likely brought to North America by slaves from Africa, and the Caribbean before the USA existed.
Peanut is widely produced in tropical and subtropical regions of the world.China accounts for 37% of world production, Africa for 25%, India for 21%, the Americas for 8% and Oceania for 6% (for major producing countries see table). Major exporters are India, which accounts for 37% of world exports, Argentina for 13%, the United States for 10%, China for 8% and Malawi for 5%. In the United States, Georgia is the leading peanut-producing state, (Carter made a joke pf becasue he was a 'peanut farmer') So again, the major exported is a country on the other side of the world from which it was originally cultivated.
What about the (in)famous Groundnut Scheme?
In 1947, the British Labour Government picked up on a suggestion originally from a Unilever subsidiary, and formulated the "Tanganyika (now Tanzania) groundnut scheme" through the Overseas Food Corporation (OFC). The purpose was to alleviate the worldwide shortage of vegetable oils. However, inadequate research and adverse environmental conditions due to poor planning resulted in the complete and disastrous failure of the scheme. "As a contribution to both the African and the British economies and to alleviate a world shortage of fats, the scheme was ill planned, failed to allow for the area’s soil and rainfall, and employed unsuitable agricultural methods, including the wrong kind of machinery for the terrain. MAchines were just left in fields as nobody knew how to repair them. And the local traditions and attitudes were igored. The scheme’s most successful crop was a bountiful harvest of official gobbledegook" - See more: Despite great expectations, the peanuts were costing 6X to grow than they could be sold for. The plan was soon abandoned.
Peanuts are used to help fight malnutrition. Plumpy Nut, MANA Nutrition,[33] and Medika Mamba[34] are high-protein, high-energy, and high-nutrient peanut-based pastes developed to be used as a therapeutic food to aid in famine relief. The World Health Organization, UNICEF, Project Peanut Butter, and Doctors Without Bordershave used these products to help save malnourished children in developing countries.
Grow your own
The plants start out looking like a normal legume crop, but then the surprise
comes: the yellow flowers send “pegs” down into the soil, where a peanut forms at the tip of each peg. That’s certainly not how the green beans grow!
