Divisi
How to grow Bambara groundnut
Vigna subterranea · Fabaceae
Photo: Ton Rulkens · CC BY-SA 2.0
Bambara groundnut (Vigna subterranea) is one of Africa's own beans — a tough, low, bushy plant, often grown by the women of the household on the poorest, sandiest land where maize would fail. Like the groundnut it is named after, it flowers above the ground, then each flower stalk bends over and pushes its young pod down into the soil, so the seeds swell and ripen underground. Being a bean, it makes its own plant-food (nitrogen) from the air through tiny knobs on its roots, so it needs almost no fertiliser and shrugs off heat and drought far better than maize. There are no bought hybrid varieties — you grow the local types (landraces, told apart mostly by seed colour) and save your own seed year after year.
Crop Trust · CC BY-SA 4.0 
Kembangraps · CC BY-SA 3.0
- Days to maturity
- 90–170 days
- Row spacing
- 40 cm
- Plant spacing in the row
- 15 cm
- Sowing depth
- 3–5 cm
These are general figures for the crop, compiled from published agronomic references including FAO and CABI. The right choice for your field depends on your soil, rainfall and the yield you are aiming for.
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Other names for Bambara groundnut
jugoboontjie · Bambara groundnut · Bambara bean · pois bambara · voandzou · gujiya · okpa · indlubu · nzama · nyimo · ditloo · njugu mawe · epa-roro
Working in buckets, bags or paces? The farming glossary turns the measures growers actually use into kilograms and hectares — what a 20 litre bucket of each crop really weighs, and how to size a field by walking it — alongside the Shona, Swahili, Ndebele and Yoruba words used in the field. Open the glossary →
Growing bambara groundnut, stage by stage
Your bambara groundnut season, step by step — from a soft, sandy seedbed and one good planting, through light, shallow weeding while the pods bury themselves underground, to lifting the whole plant and drying the pods rock-hard so weevils can't touch your harvest.
- Get your field and seed ready
- Sow and get a full stand
- Build the plant — weed early and shallow
- Flowering and pegging — the pods go down
- Fill the pods underground
- Lift the whole plant and pick the pods
- Dry the pods hard and beat the weevils
16 step-by-step tasks in the app
Every task for bambara groundnut — what to do, when to do it and why it matters — with the amounts worked out for your own field, reminders as each one falls due, and warnings before extreme weather.
Pests and diseases that attack bambara groundnut
Divisi tells you which of these is a risk on your bambara groundnut right now, when to walk the field looking for it, and what to do the moment you find it.
Frequently asked questions
How long does bambara groundnut take to grow?
Bambara groundnut takes about 90–170 days from sowing to maturity, though the exact length varies with variety, temperature and how the season runs.
What spacing should I use for bambara groundnut?
Space bambara groundnut rows about 40 cm apart, with roughly 15 cm between plants within the row.
How deep should bambara groundnut be planted?
Sow bambara groundnut at about 3–5 cm deep. Shallower risks drying out; deeper wastes seed energy before the shoot reaches light.
What pests and diseases attack bambara groundnut?
The ones covered in this guide are Rust. Each has its own page explaining how to identify, scout for and control it.
Grow bambara groundnut with a plan, not a guess
Divisi turns this guide into a dated plan for your own field — what to do each week, reminders as tasks fall due, and warnings before extreme weather. Free for farmers, works offline.
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