Buffalo Gourd and Jojoba: Potential New Crops for Arid Lands

Abstract

Publisher Summary This chapter reviews the progress made in developing two potential crops for arid lands: buffalo gourd and jojoba. These plants have different attributes and require different cultural techniques, but they both appear to offer considerable potential for becoming important new crops for warm, arid regions of the world. These crops are profitable to produce on a very large scale and are well adapted to mechanization. The grain crops are not particularly perishable and can be stored and transported with relative ease. Each species is particularly adapted to large growing areas where they produce excellent yields. The wheat plant that dominates the semiarid croplands of the world fills the need in these areas for a cultivated crop with a lower demand for water and a greater tolerance for drought. Rice, a grain crop adapted to growing in fields flooded by water and requiring a long growing season to mature, is the staple grain of much of the world's tropical agriculture. These and other major staple world crops are grown in the most desirable agricultural areas as determined by soil and climate. The potential for any new crop to achieve an established position in the highly competitive agricultural and industrial economy of the United States requires outstanding attributes as well as a long, adequately funded period of research and development.