This legume species produces starchy, high-protein tubers that were used by indigenous Native Americans. Apios americana is found throughout eastern and central North America, from Louisiana in the south to Quebec in the north. A breeding program was begun in the 1980s by Dr. Bill Blackmon and Berthal Reynolds with the goal of creating a more marketable domesticated tuber. Transcriptome sequencing and population analysis have been undertaken by Dr. Steven Cannon and Vikas Belamkar.
Read more about the effort in this article here.