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DIY Agriculture

Sesame — Biology

Metadata research draftEvidence limits

⚠️ Status: metadata draft. Every DOI below is a candidate metadata record from the survey research/sesame-seeds/report.md — title, identifier, and citation data only, not screened evidence. No record has passed the human screening gates (survey §8), no full text has been read, and no method or result is claimed from a title. Substantive values remain Unknown — Evidence: Unknown unless tagged otherwise — until S-#### source notes exist (docs/methodology/evidence.md). Not growing advice.

Taxonomy and identity

Section titled “Taxonomy and identity”
  • Family Pedaliaceae, species Sesamum indicum. Evidence: Known (basic taxonomy; matches data/crops/sesame.yaml).
  • Sesame is an oilseed with two linked but separate outputs: clean seed and extracted oil (survey §2). They have different quality endpoints and different yields; no page in this dossier may merge them. See processing.md and yield.md.
  • Corpus boundary, not a biology claim: the survey excludes SESAME-software acronyms, sesame products applied to other crops, and biomedical noise, and requires explicit species handling for wild Sesamum records (survey §6).

Lifecycle and growth form

Section titled “Lifecycle and growth form”
  • Annual herb; flowering and capsule maturity vary by cultivar and environment. Evidence: Known (structural; data/crops/sesame.yaml). Days to flowering or maturity, height, branching habit — Evidence: Unknown.
  • Planting-date effects on growth and development: a 1987 candidate record (10.2134/agronj1987.00021962007900040024x; survey §3.2). Coverage only — its environments, dates, and measurements are unverified. See planting.md.

Flowering and photoperiod

Section titled “Flowering and photoperiod”
  • A 1992 candidate on flowering response to temperature and photoperiod (10.1071/ar9921101; citation expansion attached 31 edges — survey §3.2). The response itself — sensitivity class, thresholds, cultivar scope — Evidence: Unknown until full text.
  • A 2018 candidate flags a photoperiod-response gene (10.1186/s12870-018-1583-z) — a genetics lead, not a sowing-calendar rule for any latitude or cultivar. Open question 3 keeps this live.

Capsule development

Section titled “Capsule development”
  • The capsule is the fruit carrying the seed; its development stage interacts with harvest timing. A 2020 candidate covers capsule and seed development (10.9734/ijecc/2020/v10i430189; survey §3.6). The survey flags capsule-development evidence as thinner than shattering genetics (§7).
  • Capsule type — dehiscent / partially dehiscent / non-dehiscent — is a cultivar property (harvest.capsule_type in data/crops/sesame.yaml). The type of any locally obtainable cultivar: Evidence: Unknown (open question 2).

Capsule dehiscence — a trait, not a loss number

Section titled “Capsule dehiscence — a trait, not a loss number”
  • Dehiscence is the capsule’s splitting mechanism; seed loss is the quantity of seed measured as lost before, during, or after harvest. Record the mechanism and outcome separately; the effect of timing for a given cultivar remains Evidence: Unknown until screened or measured.
  • Candidate records, title-level only: dehiscence anatomy (10.1017/s0021859699007364, 2000); inheritance of indehiscent capsule character (10.15832/ankutbd.539005, 2019); high-density SNP mapping of capsule shattering (10.3389/fpls.2021.679659, 2021); dehiscent vs indehiscent capsule metabolite/mechanism comparison (10.1016/j.fochms.2024.100231, 2024).
  • A growth-regulator × dehiscence candidate exists (10.1016/s0378-4290(99)00076-3, 2000) — noted in harvesting.md. No chemical practice is recommended anywhere in this dossier.

Dehiscent vs non-dehiscent cultivars

Section titled “Dehiscent vs non-dehiscent cultivars”
  • Evidence generated on non-dehiscent mechanized cultivars cannot be transferred to dehiscent household seed without cultivar context (survey §3.6). Any future claim must carry cultivar, capsule type, environment, maturity stage, harvest timing, and measured seed loss together. Evidence: Known (transfer rule); the underlying agronomy — Evidence: Unknown.

Genetic and cultivar diversity

Section titled “Genetic and cultivar diversity”
  • Survey §3.1 candidates: global transcriptome/EST-SSR markers (10.1186/1471-2164-12-451, 2011); deep resequencing/allelic variation (10.1186/s12870-014-0225-3, 2014); morphological/genetic diversity among accessions (10.1007/s12298-015-0322-2, 2015); “omics” review (10.3389/fpls.2017.01154, 2017).
  • The direct Mexico agronomy lead is a genotype × environment study (10.1002/agj2.70077, 2025). A historical Mexico title (10.2307/141143, 1941) needs full-text screening before its relevance is known.
  • Which locally obtainable cultivar suits food seed, oil extraction, and the target climate — Evidence: Unknown (open question 1).

Seed: one organ, two uses

Section titled “Seed: one organ, two uses”
  • The same harvested seed is either food seed or planting seed. Germination/viability requirements and edible-quality requirements are different endpoints and must not be merged (survey §3.8). See storage.md and processing.md.

Small-scale relevance

Section titled “Small-scale relevance”
  • Capsule type decides the household harvest problem before any tool is chosen: a dehiscent cultivar makes timing and gentle handling the core risks; a non-dehiscent one shifts the work to threshing. Buying seed without knowing its capsule type is the first small-scale trap this page can flag — Evidence: Unknown for any named variety.
  • Cultivar choice also fixes photoperiod behavior and maturity pattern, hence the sowing window — currently Evidence: Unknown for the intended region.

Unknowns and experiments

Section titled “Unknowns and experiments”
  • Maturity phenology and capsule-development stages for any candidate cultivar — Evidence: Unknown.
  • Whether locally sold food seed can serve as planting seed (viability, germination) — Evidence: Unknown; pairs with open question 1 and the staged-harvest experiment E2.
  • Genotype × environment behavior in Mexico exists only as a metadata lead (10.1002/agj2.70077, 2025; rainfed Guerrero — survey §4); no result is claimed here.
Section titled “Related pages”
  • index.md — crop overview and documentation map.
  • climate.md — temperature, photoperiod, drought/waterlogging/salinity candidates.
  • harvesting.md — maturity distinctions and harvest practice.
  • storage.md — food seed vs planting seed endpoints.
  • open-questions.md — live questions and experiments E1–E4.

Provenance

Section titled “Provenance”