Complete Guide to African Pigeon peas
Pigeon pea may be a terribly versatile plant in an exceedingly property garden due to its several uses as food, mulch, inexperienced manure, shelter, windbreaks, living trellises, and even firewood. scan on to be told however you'll grow it in your garden and take pleasure in its many uses.
What’s Pigeon Peas ?
Pigeon Peas Flowering
Pigeon Peas are a perennial legume that thrive with little care in sub-tropical and tropical areas. they will tolerate cooler climates however are usually big as an annual as significant frosts will kill them, but several people favor to treat the plant as an annual despite wherever they grow, because it is reputed that they live regarding five years with the primary year’s harvest being the most effective and declining over time. PigeonPeas quality is probably going won by however low fuss it is, tolerating lower than best growing conditions (including drought) and poor soils all while at the same time rising the soil.
It grows to about 6.5 – thirteen linear unit high (2–4m) x 3.5 – 6.5 ft (1-2m) wide and lives for 4-5 years. Seed production is highest within the first few years. Standard for its high heat and drought tolerance, however frost can kill it. It grows in tropical and semitropical regions, together with the Southeastern United States. There are many {sorts many types} of Pigeon Peas available, so look out for cultivars that are suited to your native conditions. If your season is short, opt for early manufacturing varieties.
Pigeon Peas uses
The foremost obvious use is for food. Eat the contemporary inexperienced peas raw, steamed, or boiled. Store the dried peas as you'd lentils; then soak and/or sprout, and cook. Use them in Indian dkl (split Pigeon Peas is termed ‘Toor Dal’ in India), soups, or South yank vogue rice and bean dishes.
They additionally create a decent hedge around vegetable gardens. Grow them aboard young fruit trees for mulch, shelter, and to draw in bees. Chop and drop the branches below your fruit trees as required and that they can re-grow. Use them as a living trellis to grow tomatoes. simply plant your tomatoes at the bottom of the pigeon pea and permit them to climb. Grow as a manure to boost your soil by chopping and dropping them as they start to flower.
A way to GROW Pigeon
Peas
Pigeon Peas are incredibly simple to grow. It doesn’t need fertile soils as a result of it will turn out it’s own element through nitrogen fixation. However it'll grow quicker and produce additional seeds in higher soils, as long as there's smart drainage. It can tolerate a soil pH scale of 4.5 – 8.4! it's best suited to a mean annual rain of twenty three – thirty-nine inches (400-600mm), but can produce with as very little as fifteen inches (400mm) or the maximum amount as ninety eight inches (2500mm).
Plant in spring or throughout the season once soil temperatures are 77F (25C) for germination (start inside in cooler climates). Direct seed one in. (2.5 cm) deep, or in tiny pots for later transplanting. Germination will take up to some weeks. watch out to not overwater, or they'll rot, particularly in cool climates. simply water at the start then not {again once additional} till once germination, unless the soil dries out beforehand. to confirm they turn out element within the soil, you'll have to be compelled to inoculate the seed before sowing. Cowpea Rhizobium works. raise your seed merchant for more information.
Gathering
Pigeon pea will begin flowering inside some months. Harvest the inexperienced peas once they begin to swell within the pods, or wait till the pods flip brown and dry on the plant for dried beans. take away the pods and leave them in the sun in an exceedingly bag and that they ought to split open, however you’ll have to be compelled to split several by hand to get rid of the seeds. fancy your nutritive harvest!
Usage
They will be wont to produce microclimates in an exceedingly garden, adding shade wherever necessary or a windbreak.
Some individuals wish to use them as a living garden stake/trellis, opting to grow tomatoes or beans up them as a twin crop that may then be abate upon crop completion instead of troubled to detangle dead material.
-The entire plant may be used as an animal fodder plant forpoultry, oxen and pigs.
-The peas are 25% macromolecule that may be ingested contemporary (although are a touch astringent) or treated as a pulse and is often wont to create Dhal.
-The plant may be used to produce a hedge, or a “fedge” (food hedge).
-The brilliant red and yellow flowers attract an excellent range of bees.
-The dried peas can be ground down into a flour.
-Thicker stems of the plant can be used as a firewood.
-It can be used as a kill plant once farming alternative additional prone crops (such as cotton)
Propagation
Pigeon Peas grow terribly promptly from seed to A level they will become somewhat weedy if not unbroken in check, but the seedlings are simply force from the ground.
Pests and Diseases
I’ve personally found Giant grasshoppers (Valanga irregularis) have a fond interest in eating the greenery of Pigeon Peas, however never to an extent that has caused noticeable damage. However I do find that ads a level of attraction for keeping Pigeon Peas growing amongst a chicken coup as they can eat the plant and the attracted grasshoppers.
Some aphids have also been spotted on my Pigeon Pea plants however as I maintain a good amount of lady beetles they are rarely of concern to me.
There are some caterpillars that bore through the seed pods to eat the peas which bagging may help prevent however from my experience the plant produces enough to go around (a factor that commercial farmers may feel differently about).
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