A boy in a yellow shirt and a white dog sitting at a desk in front of a black chalkboard. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across peanut butter m&ms the article title. This article is about the crop. For the comic strip, see Peanuts.

For Peanut allergen powder, see Peanut allergen powder-dnfp. For the folk song, see Goober Peas. Peanuts are similar in taste and nutritional profile to tree nuts such as walnuts and almonds, and, as a culinary nut, are often served in similar ways in Western cuisines. The Arachis genus is native to South America, east of the Andes, around Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, and Brazil.

The process of domestication through artificial selection made A. The domesticated plants are bushier, more compact, and have a different pod structure and larger seeds. The oldest known archeological remains of pods have been dated at about 7,600 years old, possibly a wild species that was in cultivation, or A. They were found in Peru, where dry climatic conditions are favorable for the preservation of organic material. In the English-speaking world, peanut growing is most important in the United States.

Peanut butter was developed in the 1880s and 1890s in the United States and Canada. The flowers are 1 to 1. They are borne in axillary clusters on the stems above ground and last for just one day. Peanut fruits develop underground, an unusual feature known as geocarpy. Peanut pegs growing into the soil. The tip of the peg, once buried, swells and develops into a peanut fruit. Peanuts grow best in light, sandy loam soil with a pH of 5.

Their capacity to fix nitrogen means that providing they nodulate properly, peanuts benefit little or not at all from nitrogen-containing fertilizer, and they improve soil fertility. To maximize yield, the timing of harvest is important. The main yield-limiting factors in semiarid regions are drought and high-temperature stress. The stages of reproductive development before flowering, at flowering, and at early pod development are particularly sensitive to these constraints. In mechanized systems, a machine is used to cut off the main root of the peanut plant by cutting through the soil just below the level of the peanut pods. The machine lifts the “bush” from the ground, shakes it, then inverts it, leaving the plant upside down to keep the peanuts out of the soil.