Hog Peanut - Amphicarpaea bracteata

[nicolas]

Hog Peanut or Talet (Amphicarpaea bracteata or Amphicarpa bracteata) is a very interesting plant. Unfortunately no breeding work i am aware of have been done on it.

Hog peanut is a nitrogen fixing plant that is perennial, cold hardy, shade tolerant and that bears edible tubers. The main drawback is that tubers are quite small and are hard t find.

Another interesting use of Hog Peanut is in polyculture, as a vigorous and competitive ground cover that fixes nitrogen. It seems that it can be used as fodder/forage.

Some facts on shade tolerance :



Some links :

Amphicarpaea bracteata - hog peanut @apios institute

Next generation polyculture @permaculture institute

Any screening / selecting / breeding project ?

[nicolas]

As for Caragana, there seems to be some great variations in seed size. Here is two accessions, one from ARS GRIN, the other from IPK which shows the difference in size. There were some very 'big' seeds in the IPK accession. I hope that a big true seed may give a more productive plant for foliage and/or tuber production.

[nicolas]

From "Use and nutritive value of talet beans, Amphicarpaea bracteata (Fabaceae: Phaseoleae) as human food in Puebla, México" :

However, major improve-
ments through breeding have to be accomplished in order to make talet bean a better yielding
crop.
Talet bean should be planted in higher field
densities and research programs for selecting
quality individual yield strains should be imple-
mented to increase its yield and facilitate its har-
vest. Perhaps, for a more profitable harvest it
will be necessary to breed plants with reduced
internode length on their basal branches for a
clustering of the geocarpic fruits within a small
area, and primarily at the base of the plant.
There is also a need to explore further the ca-
pacity of aerial flowers (cleistogamic) to pro-
duce geocarpic-type fruits [e.g., by means of
hanging baskets or plastic black bags (Dore
1970)].

[nicolas]

I've hard time finding any other sources of seeds/tubers than the two accessions pictured above.

[starry]

Coincidentally I just had seeds arrive in the mail today that I was gifted from a fellow gardener.

[starry]

Peace Seeds offered them last year but not this year. You could email them to see if they have any seeds?

[starry]

I should hopefully have some to share at the end of the season

[nicolas]

Fruit snack: thank for the tip and the proposition. Any seeds any day will be very appreciate



So clever. Maybe one needs to do select breeding on mices rather than hog peanuts

[edward]

These are some aerial seeds that were collected locally in October, 2013.
I suspect that I will have seed available in the autumn as well

[nicolas]

This would be great, thanks edward ! What are you plans for this specy ?

[edward]

I would like to plant a large quantity of aerial seed and then assess the diversity present in the collection. I think that after that process I will have a better idea of how to progress with future projects. However, that will have to be a project for 2015 as I will be away during the 2014 growing season.

[wildseedvt]

We've got oodles of these on the forest floor (shaded areas only)... Glad to see some others interested, I've always felt it's a overlooked plant. I have noticed around here they either struggle or florish, perhaps this is the year for more observation to understand what encourages or inhibits them.
I'll do some collecting this year for seeds and tubers.

[hortusbrambonii]

I've read a lot about this plant, but it is still unclear to me if it ever yields enough of any harvastable part (seeds, tubers?) to use this as a food crop.

What parts do you use, how do you use it, do you have recipes?

[nicolas]

Its tubers that are usually gathered. If even native indians tried to gather tubers from mice nests, you have an idea of the poor productivity by hour of harvesting. I'm more interested of it as a polyculture member and some emergency food.

[edward]

I agree that it does not produce yields comparable to certain other minor crops. In my experience it does take time to forage for even a small amount of subterranean seeds in the wild.
I have boiled the subterranean seeds and added a bit of butter - they do taste like a beans and are quite good.
However, I do think that it is quite an interesting legume worthy of investigation. If a wild teosinte could be developed into our modern maize, then I think that there is potential for many minor crops