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NUTRITION

Apios americana tubers were found to have a protein concentration of 15-30 mg/g. This was similar to that of other species in the Apios genus, Apios carnea and Apios fortunei. However, A. americana had larger levels of genistein than the other two species.

The tuber and the flower are also full of mono and oligosaccharide. The tuber has more monosaccharides and oligosaccharides than the soybean, potato, and sweet potato. Genistein-7-O-gentiobioside is a novel isoflavone that is found in the American groundnut. Extract from the American groundnut was shown to not have anti-oxidative activity itself, but to drive the anti-oxidative pathway in cells. Human breast carcinoma MCF-7 cells were pretreated with the extract of A. americana for 24 hours. Subsequent analysis showed an increase in expression of heme oxygenase-1, a protein induced during oxidative stress. The American groundnut, like soybean, is a great source of isoflavone. Furthermore, a study on A. americana and it’s flower shows that the flower of the particular plant is not toxic to mice. In fact, the flower was shown to lower plasma glucose levels in diabetic mice. The flower was shown to have an inhibitory activity on maltose and an anti-hyperglycemic effect in mice suggesting that not only is it a viable and novel food source for the general population, but also in the prevention of diabetes.

DOMESTICATION:

From 1985 to 1994, an Apios breeding program took place that resulted in the collection of over 200 wild accessions. These accessions underwent hybridization and selection and over 2200 lines were assessed.vOf these lines, only 53 genotypes were kept for further analysis. Three different locations and three different growing conditions—field, pots, and grow-bags—were utilized. There was significant variation found between almost all of the 20 genotypes in the field growing condition. Furthermore, inter-node length, plant vigor, and stem diameter during plant growth was positively correlated with the plant yield below ground. There were four distinct genotypic clusters found in this collection of Apios lines. Several genotypes yielded large plants in all locations maxing up to 1.5 kg of below ground tuber. This suggests that the plant has a good ability to adapt and grow in a wide variety of locations and conditions. Furthermore, the superior germplasm identified in this project may be suitable as cultivars, and will aid in further development of Apios lines as a crop. There are challenges to breeding and domesticating this plant, as well. There seems to be a partial self-incompatibility with Apios breeding and manual pollinations resulting in rare seed-sets. Disadvantages in Apios as a crop are its vining habit. The crop also has small tuber size for most genotypes. These sizes are typically smaller than 50 grams, however some do average around 100 grams. The tuber plant is also difficult to harvest because of the "beads on a string" arrangement on stolons that extend for over a meter.

NITROGEN FIXATION: This data suggests that nitrogen fertilization may be required to maximize tuber size and yields in A. americana.