Last edited on 3 Feb 2024. View history
Pigeon Pea
Pigeon Pea
How to sow pigeon pea: Direct seed outdoors when soil is 20-30° C
Sun requirement for pigeon pea: Plant in Full Sun
The Pigeon Pea is a fast-growing perennial legume in the Fabaceae (Legume) family native to India. It can be grown as a woody, shrubby perennial for 3-5 years in tropical and semi-tropical regions, or as an annual in cooler regions. Pigeon Peas are grown as food, animal forage, and green manure. Leaves can be used to treat coughs, hemorrhaging, wounds, and diarrhea. They are widely consumed in south Asia, where they are a major source of protein. Pigeon Pea is very drought-tolerant and can grow in poor soils because of it's deep tap root. It prefers a temperature range of 18-30° C. Yellow flowers develop into flat, straight pods 5-9cm long that have 2-9 seeds each. Seeds are 8mm in diameter and green, red, brown, or black. Dwarf varieties are ready for harvest 3-5 months after sowing, taller varieties in 8-12 months. Harvest when 75% of the pods have turned brown. Inoculation is not necessary, but if desired, use a cowpea Rhizobium strain.
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Pigeon pea facts
Lifespan
Height × spread
400cm × 400cmCrop cycle
Max altitude
Optimal light
What are growing degree days?
A plant grows with warmth, not with days. A growing degree day is one day's worth of useful warmth: how many degrees the day's average temperature is above the lowest temperature the crop grows at. Add them up from planting and you know how far along the crop is, whatever the calendar says.
Say that lowest temperature is 10°C. A day averaging 17°C gives 7 growing degree days. A day averaging 8°C gives none, as it is too cold for the crop to grow. That is why the same lettuce takes about 50 days in a summer and 90 in an autumn: it needs the same total warmth either way.
For pigeon pea, the FAO EcoCrop database gives a lowest growing temperature of 10°C and a shortest growing cycle of 90 days at its best temperature, about 1620 growing degree days to a first harvest.
Where you've told us where your garden is, we use this and the weather there to predict when your pigeon pea will be ready to harvest. We don't use it for how long a plant lives or when it finishes: we go by what members have logged for that.
Plant pigeon peas with
millet
Photos
PhotosPigeon pea crops
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Ecological requirements
Data from the FAO EcoCrop database for Cajanus cajan (L.) Millsp.
| Family / Taxonomy | Magnoliopsida Rosidae Fabales Leguminosae |
|---|---|
| Life form | shrub |
| Life span | perennial |
| Habit | prostrate/procumbent/semi-erect |
| Optimal soil depth | deep (>>150 cm) |
| Optimal soil texture | medium, light |
| Optimal soil fertility | moderate |
| Optimal soil drainage | well (dry spells) |
| Optimal soil salinity | low (<4 dS/m) |
| Photoperiod | short day (<12 hours), neutral day (12-14 hours) |
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