Peanut

Peanuts are native to South America. The ancient Incas of Peru stashed peanuts in jars at burial sites to nourish departed spirits.

Peanuts made their way to the southern colonies of North America with slaves from West Africa, who planted them as a food crop to feed themselves.

They called the nut "nguba," which was the origin of the word "goober," one of many names for the peanut.

The peanut is now cultivated in more than 40 countries on six continents. India andChina produce more than half the peanuts in the world, followed by Nigeria, Senegal, theUnited States, Indonesia, Sudan, and Burma.

In the United States, the major peanut-growing states are Georgia, Alabama, North Carolina, and Texas. Oklahoma ranks fifth among the nine states that raise peanuts in our country.

The peanut is not a nut but a legume, in the same family as the bean and the pea.

Legumes help restore poor soils by capturing nitrogen from the air and making it availableto the plants through their root systems.

Peanuts need a long growing season to produce mature seeds.

They will not tolerate frost.

Although they form underground, the edible portions of the plant are not tubers butseeds housed in a capsule—a nutlike shell.

FERTILIZATION

The plant bears yellow male flowers and inconspicuous female flowers.

After fertilization, the peduncle, or flower stalk, grows long, forcing the growing seed pod underground, where it reaches maturity.

The peanut is about 28 percent protein, 50 percent oil, 18 percent carbohydrates, and 4 percent ash. 

USES

In the United States, one-fourth of all edible peanuts end up in candy bars, and over half are used for making peanut butter.

Americans eat enough peanut butter in a year to make over 10 billion peanut butter sandwiches.

At graduation, the average high school student will have consumed 1,500 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

The average American eats about 11 pounds of peanuts a year.

Very little peanut butter is consumed outside the United States.

Worldwide, about two-thirds of the peanut crop is crushed for oil. Peanut oil supplies about 8 percent of the world’s edible oil production.

Peanut products are used in food processing and for animal food.

The peanut shell and residues left after oil pressing can be fed to animals.

Plants can also be left in the ground to provide excellent forage for cattle and swine and to help enrich the soil.