Despite these efforts at domestication, the American groundnut remains largely uncultivated and underused in North America and Europe. There are challenges to breeding and domesticating this plant, as well. There seems to be a partial self-incompatibility with Apios breeding and manual pollinations, resulting in rare seed-sets. Disadvantages in Apios as a crop are its vining habit. The crop has small tuber size for most genotypes. These sizes are typically smaller than ; however, some do average around . The tuber plant is difficult to harvest because of the "beads on a string" arrangement on stolons, which extend for over a meter.