Early bird gets the cowpeas

I accepted an offer yesterday to help another lab harvest cowpeas. This doesn't inherently sound like fun, but I heard that there was the possibility of getting some dates (fruit) as well. I thought, well, it's just a morning, and they need the help, so why not?

We met early and headed out to Coachella Valley, to the Ag station out there, owned by UC. This station is a center of research and variety collections of many important and fun crops.

My first surprise was that the cowpeas are not fodder for cows, but beans- actually known as black-eyed peas. The variety was amazing in the different genotypes we were sampling. Wrinkled, smooth, black, brown-eyed, red, etc. I see where Mendel got his inspiration! The researchers I was with are breeding for drought-tolerance as cowpeas are an important food staple in Africa.

One ironic note was that we drove through a very poor Native American Reservation on the way to the station. This, the poorest area in this county is adjacent to one of the richest areas in the county, a Palm Springs outgrowth. We remarked on the irony that the most productive area is the poorest. What value do we put on our food and those who help produce it as compared to how we value other professions?

After a pretty easy (but windy, dusty and dry) couple hours of taking samples, we took a tour around to the other collections. Attached are photos of my "haul." This bunch of dates represents a diversity that is difficult to find commercially. The white puff is... you guessed it... cotton.