Abstract
Perennial vegetables are a neglected and underutilized class of crops with potential to address 21st century challenges. They represent 33–56% of cultivated vegetable species, and occupy 6% of world vegetable cropland. Despite their distinct relevance to climate change mitigation and nutritional security, perennial vegetables receive little attention in the scientific literature. Compared to widely grown and marketed vegetable crops, many perennial vegetables show higher levels of key nutrients needed to address deficiencies. Trees with edible leaves are the group of vegetables with the highest levels of these key nutrients. Individual “multi-nutrient” species are identified with very high levels of multiple nutrients for addressing deficiencies. This paper reports on the synthesis and meta-analysis of a heretofore fragmented global literature on 613 cultivated perennial vegetables, representing 107 botanical families from every inhabited continent, in order to characterize the extent and potential of this class of crops. Carbon sequestration potential from new adoption of perennial vegetables is estimated at 22.7–280.6 MMT CO2-eq/yr on 4.6–26.4 Mha by 2050.
Highlights
The perennialization of crop production has been proposed as a multifunctional approach to address environmental and other challenges in agriculture, due to the many benefits of perennial crops [1], but the perennialization of vegetable production has largely been ignored
A literature search was conducted for this study with the aim of compiling a comprehensive list of cultivated Perennial vegetables (PVs)
The full list is included as supplemental document “Cultivated Perennial Vegetable Species” as an Excel spreadsheet
Summary
The perennialization of crop production has been proposed as a multifunctional approach to address environmental and other challenges in agriculture, due to the many benefits of perennial crops [1], but the perennialization of vegetable production has largely been ignored. Perennial vegetables (PVs) are a neglected and underutilized class of crops with potential to address crises of crop biodiversity, climate change, and nutrient deficiencies. PVs are perennial plants cultivated for their edible vegetative growth (e.g., leaves) and/or reproductive structures (e.g., flowerbuds). They include some savory tree fruits that are used in cooked dishes, but not sweet or tart dessert fruits.
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