Research Projects

Terms to Grow your knowledge…

• The Legume Family
  Leguminosae (or Fabaceae) – the large plant family typified by herbaceous plants, shrubs, trees, and vines having usually compound leaves, clusters of irregular, keeled flowers, and fruit in the form of a pod splitting along both sides, and including beans, peas, acacia, alfalfa, clover, indigo, lentil, mesquite, mimosa, and peanut.
• Field Pea
  Pisum sativum arvense – Variety of the common pea, grown for foliage and silage. Round, edible seed of a widely cultivated plant of the legume family. The green, somewhat inflated pod of this plant.
• Lentil
  Lens culinaris – a plant of the legume family, having flattened, biconvex seeds used as food.
• Chickpea
  Cicer arietinum – Also called garbanzo, a widely cultivated plant of the legume family, bearing pods containing pealike seeds.
• Plant Breeding
  The production of new varieties/forms by selection, cross, and hybridizing.
• Crossing
  The act or process of crossbreeding, hybridization; crossbreeding. Using parents of different varieties, breeds, etc to create new breeds and hybrids.
• Hybridization
  Offspring of two different varieties of plant to produce a genetically hardier and more advanced variety, it is used extensively in agriculture, where new forms of hardy and disease-resistant plants are produced commercially.
• Greenhouse
  Building, usually of glass, in which the temperature is maintained within a desired range, used for cultivating tender plants or ‘out of season’ plants. Ability to control environment indoors and provide protection for plants from outside elements.
• Pulse Crops
  The edible seeds of any of several leguminous plants, such as peas, beans, and lentils the plant producing any of these seeds.
• Biofortification
  The process of breeding staple crops to have higher levels of essential nutrients, either through selective breeding or genetic modification.