The legume family contains more or less 18,000 coinage . For the fair someone , legume are peanuts , beans and soy beans , lentils and peas . As nutrient , legume provide crucial nutrients . As an agricultural harvest , legumes may be used not only for their commercial time value as food for thought , but also as a green manure harvest .

History

Legumes , and more specifically beans , have been educate for food for centuries . As one of the first domesticated solid food plants , legumes proved adaptable to a variety of soil types , and varieties of the species are incur virtually on all inhabited continents . archaeologist have discover evidence that planting legume as a means of improve soil was an agricultural practice in the ancient civilizations of Greece and Egypt . In Roman time , leguminous plant were an authoritative part of the practice of crop gyration .

Function

Legumes string atomic number 7 from the surrounding air and desexualize it to the soil , supplying the dirt with this all important nutrient . This nitrogen fixing financial aid in the health of the soil , peculiarly for subsequent crops such as Brassica oleracea italica and cabbage , both heavy nitrogen self-feeder .

Legumes also benefit human . High in protein and low in fatty tissue , legume are authoritative to vegetarian and vegan diets as a germ of protein . Legumes are high-pitched in fiber and plant steroid alcohol , both important constituent in a sum - healthy dieting .

Features

Legumes are characterized by the split eggshell , such as those easily acknowledge in beans and peanuts . The shells or pods contain the source of the industrial plant . In the case of such intellectual nourishment as unripe beans , the cod is edible . Many legume ejaculate are small with a hard outer skin and need extensive cooking , as with kidney beans or garbanzo attic . Garbanzo beans may be crunch into flour and used as a gluten - free alternative to wheat flour .

Benefits

Legumes may be produce as a immature manure harvest in great - scale agribusiness . Green manure is the term apply to a craw turned into the filth after flowering but before the works sets its seed . In the case of legume , the high nitrogen content of the foliation revitalizes soil that has been depleted by old crop .

Considerations

In domicile gardening , legumes benefit other crops with its nitrogen - fastening ability . Planted with squash rackets and corn , a tierce know in Native American farming as The Three Sisters , the legumes , unremarkably bean plant , desexualize the nitrogen for the corn and mash . Both corn and squash call for high concentration of nitrogen for emergence . The corn stalk cater support for the beans and the squash provides cover to keep the soil moist and the Mary Jane at bay .

References

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