What are legume vegetables?

There are many kinds of vegetables. People believe that eating more vegetables can not only supplement various nutrients, but also help lose weight and lower blood lipids, which has many benefits to people's health. Legumes are a type of vegetable that people often choose. What are the legumes? There are many types of legumes, such as beans, peas, edamame, etc. that people often eat, all of which are legumes.

Legumes are an indispensable food for the human body. They are delicious and healthy. For example, soybeans are high in protein and can supplement various nutrients for people of different ages. Legume vegetables are cultivated species in the legume family that are eaten as vegetables with their tender pods or tender beans. They mainly include green beans, cowpeas, edamame, peas, broad beans, lentils, sword beans, and four-angled beans.

Broad beans and peas are native to temperate zones, have strong cold resistance, and avoid high temperatures and dryness, making them semi-cold-resistant vegetables. Other bean vegetables are native to the tropics, are not resistant to low temperatures and frost, and are thermophilic vegetables.

Legumes are rich in protein, with the dry seed content reaching 20% ​​to 40%, and are complete protein, making them an important source of plant protein for humans. Legumes also contain more carbohydrates, fats, minerals and multiple vitamins. The main edible beans are their tender pods or tender beans, which are delicious when eaten fresh. They can be used as raw materials for quick freezing, dehydration, canning, pickling, etc.

The root system of legume vegetables is well developed, deep in the soil, and more drought-resistant; the lateral root regeneration ability is weak, and the root system is highly corky, so direct seeding is appropriate. Early cultivation requires seedling transplanting, but care must be taken to reduce damage to the root system.

Bean seeds are rich in protein. If they have too much water after sowing, they will easily rot and lose their germination ability. Therefore, it is best to sow them in the open field in early spring with dry seeds. Too much water before flowering can easily cause the stems and leaves to grow too long and reduce the differentiation of flower buds. Too much rain or high soil humidity during flowering and pod formation can easily cause flowers and pods to fall off.

Legume vegetables are divided into three types according to their growth habits: upright, creeping, and semi-erect. The creeping type usually grows indefinitely and has a left-handed (counterclockwise) winding pattern. During the seed germination process, depending on whether the hypocotyl elongates or not, it can be divided into two types: cotyledon emergence and non-emergence.

The types whose cotyledons emerge from the soil include beans, cowpeas, edamame, etc.; the types whose cotyledons do not emerge from the soil include peas, broad beans, etc.

Legume cultivation requires 2-3 years of crop rotation. Continuous cropping will not only aggravate the occurrence of diseases and insect pests, but also increase soil acidity due to the secretion of organic acids by rhizobia, thereby limiting the activity of rhizobia and converting phosphorus in the soil into insoluble substances, affecting root absorption.

Most legume vegetables are self-pollinated and the possibility of natural hybridization is very small, so it is easier to save seeds. Organic vegetable bases should give priority to formulating and implementing practical organic vegetable seed production plans for leguminous vegetables, especially when producing organic sprouts, they should use organic vegetable seeds produced by the base.