How to Grow and Care for Cajanus

Pigeon pea (Cajanus cajan) is a woody perennial shrub that will grow to 4 m tall. Flowers attract butterflies and bees. Edible seeds, seedpods, stems and shoots. A nitrogen-fixer, it improves the quality of the soil where it is planted. Grows in full sun with moist, well-drained soil. It is drought-tolerant and will grow in a variety of soil conditions.

Cajanus scarabaeoides is a very close wild relative species of Cajanus cajan (common name, pigeonpea). It is a dicot angiosperm of the family Fabaceae. C. scarabaeoidis may be an annual or a perennial, making it a flexible crop for subsistence farmers. The branches of C. scarabaeoides can be straight or winding and up to 135 cm in length. C. scarabaeoides has pinnate leaves, typically arranged in a trifoliate manner with flowers that are yellow with red veins. The pods of C. scarabaeoides are oblong in shape, typically 11–34 mm in length and 6–10 mm in width. The seedpods are densely covered in a combination of short and long hairs and are typically a dark purple colour, containing anywhere from 1-7 seeds. The seeds of C. scarabaeoides range from 2.4–4 mm long, 1.8–3 mm wide, and 1–2 mm thick and are either black in colour or speckled. Compared to the pigeonpea cultivars, C. scarabaeoides has a higher pod seed percentage, 74% compared to 20%, and has more multiseed pods, on average 6.04 seeds compared to 3.0 seeds