What is the mystery of the soybean?
By Chelsie Vandaveer
October 4, 2001
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The soybean (Glycine max) [gli' seen max] is a cultigen, a plant generated under cultivation, far removed from its wild predecessor. Sometime in the Eleventh Century BCE, the Chinese began cultivating Glycine ussuriensis, a weedy, creeping legume with small hard seeds. But within a number of generations the soybean had been created, an upright plant with larger seeds. This was probably done by selecting and planting only the seeds from plants that exhibited desired characteristics. Botanical studies show the cultivation of the wild soybean actually may have happened in eight locations within ancient China. Additional studies suggest that peoples in ancient Manchuria may have also undertaken its domestication.
The soybean is a remarkable plant, both for its food and industrial value. Without the soybean, many of our modern products, especially the plastics and adhesives, simply would not exist or would be radically different. The soybean has given us safer products like non-toxic inks and paints. It literally impacts modern life in hundreds of common objects.
Glycine max and Glycine ussuriensis are two plants very much alike for they contain the same number of chromosomes, 40. They even backcross where the two are grown in close proximity. Yet, these two plants are very different, as far removed from each other as modern people are from ancient people. Both plants are known to improve the soil because of their association with nitrogen-fixing bacteria, but they share little else in common. For all the botanical, anthropological, and genetic studies done on the soybean, one question remains. The wild seed was practically useless to ancient humans, so why did they begin to cultivate it?
To view photographs of the wild type soybean on the Illustrated Plant Genetic Resources Database, click on the link.
http://www.gene.affrc.go.jp/htbin/plant/image/get_logo_e?plno=54217005
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Suggested Reading:
What Chinese plant gives us so much more than just food? Plants that Changed History - 10/02/01
How were soybeans used to change medicine? Plants that Changed History - January 22, 2002
How did we get so many varieties from the common bean? Weird Plants - September 20, 2001
What are popping beans? Weird Plants - September 23, 2004
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