How to grow pigeon pea

Pick a well-drained field — a gentle slope or raised land where water never sits. Pigeon pea's deep root rots in soggy ground, and waterlogging kills the nitrogen-making nodules on its roots. Avoid low, boggy bottoms.

Never sow pigeon pea where pigeon pea (or beans, cowpea or groundnut) grew last season. Follow a cereal — maize, sorghum or millet — instead. This break starves out the soil-borne wilt fungus.

Come back to the same field only after 3–4 years of other crops.

If wilt, or the bushy, pale, flowerless "sterility mosaic" disease, is common in your area, plan now to buy a resistant variety (next task) — while good seed is still on the shelf.

Choose a variety that matches your season: a short-duration type (about 3–5 months, one harvest) where the season is short; a medium or long-duration type (5–10 months, picked over weeks, and ratoonable) where you have a long season or year-round warmth.

Where wilt or sterility mosaic occur locally, ask for a resistant variety by name — it costs the same to grow and can save the whole crop.

Buy the basal fertiliser your recommendation gives — the basal is the starter fertiliser placed beside the seed at planting. For pigeon pea this is mostly phosphorus (such as single superphosphate or a compound); it makes its own nitrogen, so you need little or no N.

If you can get rhizobia inoculant — a powder of the friendly bacteria that build the root nodules where the plant makes its own nitrogen — buy a fresh sachet. It helps most where pigeon pea has not grown before. Keep it cool and out of the sun; heat kills the living bacteria.

Store seed and fertiliser dry, off the floor, away from food, water and children. Keep the label and receipt in case the seed turns out poor.

In the month before sowing, clear weeds and old crop trash off the planting lines.

Loosen the soil deep — a full spade's depth (about 20–30 cm), a little deeper than you'd dig for maize, to open the subsoil for the taproot.

Break the big clods on top to a crumbly tilth so the small seed sits snugly against moist soil.

Make sure water drains away: level the surface, and on heavy or low ground make ridges or raised beds so the crop never sits in water.

Use only well-rotted manure or compost — dark, crumbly, no sharp smell.

Spread it lightly and evenly — pigeon pea needs far less than a hungry crop like maize, so a thin scatter is plenty.

Work it into the topsoil in the week or two before sowing, so it settles in with the soil.

Sow when the soil is warm and moist — pigeon pea seed rots in cold, wet ground. Wait for a rain that wets the soil well.

Sow as deep as your first finger-joint (3–5 cm) — a little deeper in dry, sandy soil, shallower in heavy soil.

Space to suit your variety. Short-duration: rows about three hand-spans apart (60–75 cm), plants a hand-span apart (20–30 cm) in the row. Medium/long-duration: rows about a stride apart (90–150 cm), plants two hand-spans apart (30–50 cm) — the big bushes need room.

Drop one or two seeds per station and cover them.

Place the basal phosphorus a hand's width to the side (about 5 cm) of the seed and a little below it — never touching the seed, or it burns the sprout.

If you have inoculant, coat the damp seed with the powder in the shade just before sowing, and sow it the same day.

Cover and firm the soil so the seed sits snug in moist earth.

Twice a week, walk a large "W" across the field so you cover all four corners and the middle — not just the edge by the path.

At about ten stops, look at ten plants: are they coming up evenly?

Birds: look for disturbed stations, pulled-up seedlings and empty seed coats — worst in the first days after sowing. Scare them off and re-cover any exposed seed.

Damping-off: look for seedlings that keel over and rot at the soil line, in patches, in the cold wet spots. Drain the wet, and don't overwater.

Count the gaps (stations with no plant) so you know whether to gap-fill in the next few days.

About a week and a half after sowing, walk the rows and find the blank stations.

If the soil is still moist, re-sow a couple of seeds into each big gap.

Or lift a spare seedling with a ball of soil in the cool of evening, plant it in the gap, and water it in.

Don't bother filling tiny single-plant gaps — pigeon pea branches out sideways and fills the space itself.

Keep the topsoil moist but never waterlogged — pigeon pea rots in standing water faster than almost any crop.

Water every few days, more often in heat and on sandy soil that dries fast.

Check with a finger: water when the top few centimetres are dry.

Ease off once the plants are up and growing away — from here the deep root takes over.

Twice a week, walk the "W" and look closely at about ten plants at ten stops.

Sterility mosaic: look for bushy, pale light-green plants, extra-branched and leafy, that never flower — a "green wall" of leaf with no pods. Pull them out and burn or bury them.

Fusarium wilt: look for plants that suddenly wilt, yellow and die, often one branch or one side first; split the stem near the base and you'll see brown or black streaks in the wood. Pull and destroy them.

Check whether weeds are getting ahead of the crop — if so, weed now.

Weed by about 2–3 weeks after sowing, before the weeds get bigger than the crop.

Hoe shallowly between and within the rows — deep hoeing near the plants cuts the young roots.

Pull weeds out roots and all where you can; chopping only the tops lets many regrow.

In dry areas, leave the pulled weeds lying between the rows as a mulch to hold moisture.

Weed again about 5–6 weeks after sowing, before the bushes meet and close the rows.

Hoe shallowly around the now-spreading plants so you don't cut their roots.

This is usually the last weeding you'll need — once the canopy closes, the bush smothers new weeds itself.

In most seasons, leave it alone — the deep root finds its own moisture, and light watering here just wastes water and pushes leaf over pods.

Water only if the plants stay wilted into the cool of the morning — a sign the drought is genuinely biting.

If you do water, give one good soak every 10–14 days, not frequent sips.

From the first flowers, walk the "W" once a week and check flowers, buds and any young pods on about ten plants per stop.

Bollworm (Helicoverpa): look for fat green or brown striped caterpillars chewing flowers and buds, and neat round holes bored into young pods with droppings around them.

Legume pod borer (Maruca): look for flowers and young pods webbed together with silk and droppings, with a caterpillar feeding hidden inside the web.

Count how many plants carry larvae or fresh damage. If borers are at or over the local threshold, spray at 50% flowering (next task).

Note what you see each visit, so you can tell whether it is building.

Spray only if scouting is over threshold, and time it for 50% flowering — when about half the plants have opened flowers.

Reach for a biopesticide first — Bt, NPV or neem (soft, natural sprays that hit the caterpillars but spare bees). Keep a different chemical in reserve for any repeat, so the pest doesn't get used to one.

Measure the dose with the cap supplied and mix it into a full knapsack (15–20 litres). Spray to wet the flowers and pods without dripping.

Protect yourself: wear a long-sleeved shirt, cover your nose and mouth, and spray in the cool of the day with the wind behind you. Keep people and animals away, and keep spray off food.

Spray toward evening, once the bees have stopped visiting, to spare the pollinators working your flowers.

Wash yourself and the sprayer afterwards, and wait the number of days the label states before harvesting — this "pre-harvest interval" is the safe gap between the last spray and picking.

Keep the soil moist right through flowering — this is where water pays best.

Water every 7–10 days, more often in heat or on sandy soil.

Don't let the crop wilt while it is in flower — dropped flowers are lost pods.

From about two weeks after flowering started, walk the "W" once a week and check pods on about ten plants per stop.

Pod borer: look again for round holes bored into pods, striped caterpillars, and droppings around the holes.

Pod fly: the pods look fine outside, so open a few suspect pods — inside you'll find shrivelled, part-eaten seeds and a tiny white maggot or brown pupa, and later a small "window" or exit hole on the pod wall.

Pod-sucking bugs: look for green, brown or spiny bugs on the pods, and pods with sunken spots over shrivelled, dark-stained seeds.

If the pod borer is still over threshold, repeat the spray at pod set (next task).

Spray only if scouting is still over threshold, timed for pod set — about two weeks after the main flowering.

Rotate to a different product from your first spray — never the same chemical twice running, or the borers stop dying to it.

Measure the dose with the cap supplied and mix into a full knapsack (15–20 litres); spray to wet the pods without dripping.

Protect yourself: long sleeves, cover nose and mouth, spray in the cool with the wind behind you, people and animals away, off food; spray toward evening to spare the bees.

Wash afterwards and — this close to harvest — count the label's pre-harvest interval carefully so the grain is safe to eat and sell.

Keep the soil moist through pod-fill while the pods are swelling and the leaves are green.

Water every 7–10 days, easing off as the pods start to dry and turn colour.

Stop once most pods have turned brown and dry, so the crop can dry down in the field.

Harvest when about three-quarters (75–80%) of the pods are dry and brown or straw-coloured, the seeds are hard and rattle in the pod, and the leaves are yellowing and dropping.

Short-duration types: the pods ripen together — cut or strip the whole crop in one go.

Medium/long types: the pods ripen over weeks — pick the dry, brown pods every week or two and leave the green ones to finish filling.

Cut whole plants or strip pods in the cool of the morning to cut down on shattering, then pile them to finish drying.

If most pods are still green and soft, wait — pigeon pea picked wet won't store. Only harvest early if birds or a coming storm force your hand.

Do this on medium/long-duration types only — short-duration plants are spent after their single harvest and won't ratoon well.

A week or two after harvest, cut the bushes back to about knee-to-hip height (0.5–1 m) with a sharp panga or secateurs.

First pull out and destroy any plant that wilted or looked diseased — a sick plant only comes back sicker and spreads it to the rest.

Give the stumps a light weeding, and if it's very dry a little water, to wake them up.

Save the woody cut stems for firewood.

Once the pods are dry, thresh by beating them in a sack, or on a clean mat or tarpaulin, to knock the seed out.

Winnow — pour the grain from a height in a light wind to blow away the pod trash, dust and broken bits where pests breed.

Sun-dry the grain hard on a mat, rack or tarpaulin — never on bare ground, which pushes damp back in and adds stones and dirt.

Tooth test: the grain is dry enough when a seed is so hard it won't dent under your tooth (about 10–12% moisture).

If a seed still dents, dry it more — sealing damp grain traps mould and ruins the whole lot.

Check the grain is hard with no dent under a tooth before you seal anything.

For extra safety, spread the dry grain in the hot sun for a few hours just before sealing — the heat kills any beetle eggs already in it.

Seal it in hermetic (airtight) bags — such as PICS triple-layer bags — or a clean, sealed drum. Press the air out and close it tight to suffocate the beetles.

Keep the store clean, dry, off the floor and away from last season's grain, which is where the beetles hide and cross over.

Check once a month for small round holes in the seed, fine powder, or live beetles — a sign the seal has failed; if so, re-dry and re-seal.