Domesticating wild plants - Challenges and Chances

Domestication of plants was the turning point in human evolution making him a settled man from a nomadic hunter/gatherer life style. Plant domestication is a co-evolution between man and plants and is a continuing process. Man invents and tries various formulations both fertilizers and protective chemicals to enhance growth and to safeguard the plants in return for food and other necessities. Changing climatic conditions is a threat to the crop plants since they are the most vulnerable than the wild counterparts. The wild plants would have adapted to the climatic change and more resilient. In this chapter an attempt was made to domesticate the Phasey bean a member of the pea family and a relative of green gram. Phasey bean, with the scientific name Macroptilium lathyroides (Fabaceae) is a species of flowering plant in the pea family, native to the America’s and seen as a weed worldwide. It has fast growth spreading and covering the entire ground with dark green foliage. It is a fodder plant that enriches the soil with its nitrogen fixing ability. In this chapter, the yield, growth conditions, germination percentage, nutritive value of the gram was analysed and the suitability of the plant for intense cropping was studied. Microptilium lathyroides was studied and presented in this chapter as an experimental specimen for plant domestication.