Evaluation of Pigeonpea for Growth, Vegetable Yield and Forage Quality in North Alabama.

Pigeonpea (Cajanus cajan) is a drought tolerant summer legume used extensively for human food and livestock feed in Asia. While mature split seeds of pigeonpea are mostly eaten as processed/cooked food, fresh green immature pods are used as a vegetable or boiled in salt water and eaten as a snack.  Adapted and robust pigeonpea cultivars with multiple uses as food for humans and forage for animals will help sustain small family farms in Alabama. Therefore, this study was conducted to determine optimum time of planting and spacing using four pigeonpea varieties bred for production in southeastern US.  Four pigeonpea genotypes, GA1 (red seed), GA2 (red seed), W1 (white seed) and W3 (white seed) were planted May 28^th and June 22^nd at three intra-spacing of 5, 10, and 15 cm.  Plots were arranged in a split-split-plot design with four replications Genotypes GA2 and W3 flowered early and matured earlier than other two genotypes.  Results show that cultivar W3 when planted in May at 10 cm produces the most pods with a fresh pod yield of 7517 kg/ha°¥¹, GA1 yield 3828 kg/ha°¥¹, GA2 at 3308 kg/ha°¥¹ and W1 yield 1433 kg/ha°¥¹   The forage quality of leaves and stems, and nutritional profile of fresh immature seed will be further discussed.

Speaker Information: Rapheal Baggett, Dept. of Biological and Environmental Sciences, Alabama A&M University, P.O. Box 1208, NORMAL, AL 35762; Phone: 205-563-7929  ; E-mail: baggett_raph@live.com

 

Keywords: Pegionpea; grain; forage; yield, yield components