Sesame is one of the oldest cultivated plants in the world. It was a highly prized oil crop of Babylon and Assyria at least 4,000 years ago. Today, India and China are the worlds largest producers of sesame, followed by Burma, Sudan, Mexico, Nigeria, Venezuela, Turkey, Uganda and Ethiopia. World production in 1985 was 2.53 million tons on 16.3 million acres. Sesame was introduced to the United States in the 1930s. Domestic production has been limited because of the lack of cultivars that can be harvested mechanically. In 1987, the sesame acreage in this country was less than 2,500 acres, about half of which were in Texas. The U.S. imports about 40,000 tons of seed and 2,200 tons of sesame oil annually, primarily from South America. Upon ripening, sesame capsules split, releasing the seed hence the phrase, open sesame. Because of this shattering characteristic, sesame has been grown primarily on small plots that are harvested by hand. The discovery of an indehiscent nonshattering mutant by Langham in 1943 began the work towards development of a high yielding, shatterresistant variety. Although researchers have made signficant progress in sesame breeding, harvest losses due to shattering continue to limit domestic production.

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