My mornings typically start with a walk through a greenhouse at Stellenbosch University, South Africa. My students and I check the sprinkler system that provides our plantings of Bambara groundnuts with nutrient-enriched water.
Ours is one of the first experimental greenhouse-based aeroponics systems in a developing country where an indigenous legume is grown using a generic Internet of Things platform in pursuit of climate-smart agricultural options. My PhD student, Mosima Mabitsela, published the proof-of-concept for growing Bambara groundnuts in such a system in the journal Heliyon last year.
In the summer rainfall areas of sub-Saharan Africa, this fast-growing crop is known as tindlubu, ditloo, jugo bean, or earth pea. It is a type of hypogeal crop, as its seeds (or nuts) develop underground within pods.
To me, Bambara groundnuts taste like a combination of chickpeas, peanuts, and common beans. My grandmother, Nciphile Thewa Khumalo, grows some in her garden, along with sorghum, sweet potato and indigenous pumpkins. She'd be very surprised to see them thrive in a greenhouse rather than in someone's home garden or cultivated on a patch of communal land.
Read the whole story on nature.com