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Last Updated: Apr 16, 2008 - 5:52:06 PM |
Sweeter
edamame soybean varieties for organic farmers are being developed by
Virginia State University (VSU) and Agricultural Research Service (ARS)
scientists.
Tadesse Mebrahtu, a plant breeder with VSU in
Petersburg, Va., is developing new varieties of this large-green
vegetable soybean in cooperation with Thomas E. Devine, a geneticist
with the ARS Sustainable Agricultural Systems Laboratory, Beltsville,
Md.
Mebrahtu and Devine have found five types of vegetable
soybeans with higher-than-usual levels of sugar. Mebrahtu and his VSU
colleagues do the hybridization and chemical analyses for sucrose and
total sugar content.
These five types serve as the parent lines for new lines of edamame.
Edamame
have large beans that are harvested when still green. They are boiled
and slipped out of their pods and added to everything from salads to
succotash, including mixed and stir-fried vegetables, soups, and
casseroles. They are an increasingly popular health food in this
country and standard fare in Asian countries.
On Devine's part,
the search for sweeter edamame varieties for organic farmers stemmed
from his more than two decades of breeding giant soybean plants for
livestock forage.
ARS is the U.S. Department of Agriculture's chief scientific research agency.
______________________________
ARS News Service
Agricultural Research Service, USDA
Don Comis, (301) 504-1625, donald.comis@ars.usda.gov
December 10, 2007
--View this report online, plus photos and related stories, at www.ars.usda.gov/is/pr
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© 2004-2008 by foodconsumer.org unless otherwise specified
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