Kandahar Giant Cress

Lepidium spp. Origin: Kandahar, Afghanistan Improvement status: Cultivar Seeds per packet: ~30 Germination tested 12/2020: 76% Life cycle: Annual NEW EFN INTRODUCTION. Of all the seeds we've "liberated" from the obscurity of our government's genebanks, this is one of our absolute favorites — and not least because it began as a mystery and still remains quite mysterious, though we have come to appreciate its known virtues a great deal. It likely will never be a staple crop, and it's certainly not for everyone, but we are very excited to be offering it here for the first time. In 1954, a USDA "agricultural explorer" by the name of E.E. Smith visited Afghanistan. He must have collected thousands of seeds, because over 700 of his accessions can still be found in the USDA collections more than half a century later. He collected everything from barley to hemp to watermelons, along with crop wild relatives (including many grasses) and obscure crops unknown outside of Afghanistan. EFN co-