The Legume Handbook
The Legume Handbook
By: Jose Escalante
The Legume Handbook
By: Jose Escalante
Online: < http://cnx.org/content/col29266/1.1/ > This selection and arrangement of content as a collection is copyrighted by Jose Escalante. It is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Collection structure revised: May 21, 2019 PDF generated: May 21, 2019 For copyright and attribution information for the modules contained in this collection, see p. 9. Table of Contents
1 Legumes 101 ...... 1 2 Legume Lookout ...... 3 3 Legume Distribution and Production ...... 7 Attributions ...... 9 iv
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Legumes 1011
Figure 1.1
A legume is a plant in the family Fabaceae2 (or Leguminosae), or the fruit or seed of such a plant (also called a pulse). Legumes are grown agriculturally, primarily for human consumption, for livestock forage
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1 2 CHAPTER 1. LEGUMES 101 and silage, and as soil-enhancing green manure3 . Well-known legumes include alfalfa4 , clover, beans, peas, chickpeas, lentils, lupins, mesquite, carob, soybeans, peanuts, and tamarind. Legumes produce a botanically unique type of fruit a simple dry fruit that develops from a simple carpel and usually dehisces (opens along a seam) on two sides. A common name for this type of fruit is a pod, although the term "pod" is also applied to a number of other fruit types, such as that of vanilla (a capsule) and of the radish (a silique). Legumes are notable in that most of them have symbiotic nitrogen- xing bacteria in structures called root nodules. For that reason, they play a key role in crop rotation5 .
3https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_manure 4https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfalfa 5https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crop_rotation
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Legume Lookout1
In this section, a few dierent examples will be shown to help you nd some legumes.
Figure 2.1: The world runs on legumes.
2.1 Legume Visuals
If you've never seen a pinto bean before, that is about to change.
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3 4 CHAPTER 2. LEGUME LOOKOUT
Figure 2.2: A friendly group of pinto beans.
Cross "staring at a pile of broad beans" o of your bucket list.
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Figure 2.3: A batch of broad beans set beautifully against a white background.
If you see something like these around, they are likely chickpeas. Know that you are in the presence of legumes, as chickpeas are indeed legumes.
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Figure 2.4: Watch out for these.
2.2 Listen for these
These legumes tend to hide a little bit, but if you use your sense of hearing correctly you can hear their names being whispered and know that legumes are near. Can you hear them?
• Kidney bean • Scarlet runner bean • Garden pea • Lupin • Mung bean • Lima bean • Black eyed peas2 • ALFALFA • Peanuts?!
2Commonly mistaken for the band, do not eat the band (we need them).
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Legume Distribution and Production1
Legumes are widely distributed as the third-largest land plant family in terms of number of species, behind only the Orchidaceae and Asteraceae, with about 751 genera and some 19,000 known species, 2 3 constituting about seven percent of owering plant species.45 Storage of Grain Legumes Seed viability decreases with longer storage time. Studies done on Vetch, Horse beans, and peas show that they last about 5 years in storage. Environmental factors that are important in in uencing germination are relative humidity and temperature. Two rules apply to moisture content between 5 and 14 percent: the life of the seed will last longer if the storage temperature is reduced by 5 degree celsius. Secondly, the storage moisture content will decrease if temperature is reduced by 1 degree celsius. 6
Pulse Production 2017
India 953.0 Poland 311.8 United Kingdom 280.0 Mozambique 213.6 China 153.9 Vietnam 133.2 World 4,232,978
Table 3.1: That's a lot of legumes.
note: If you tried to count every legume in the world you would spend a lot of time counting legumes. You have been warned.
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7 8 CHAPTER 3. LEGUME DISTRIBUTION AND PRODUCTION
Figure 3.1: Wow
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Collection: The Legume Handbook Edited by: Jose Escalante URL: http://cnx.org/content/col29266/1.1/ License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Module: "Legumes 101" By: Jose Escalante URL: http://cnx.org/content/m76769/1.2/ Pages: 1-2 Copyright: Jose Escalante License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Module: "Legume Lookout" By: Jose Escalante URL: http://cnx.org/content/m76772/1.1/ Pages: 3-6 Copyright: Jose Escalante License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Module: "Legume Distribution and Production" By: Jose Escalante URL: http://cnx.org/content/m76773/1.3/ Pages: 7-8 Copyright: Jose Escalante License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
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