Plant · P-886

Mexican Sunflower

Tithonia diversifolia

Mexican Sunflower is grown for its cut foliage rather than any harvest off the plant itself - it wants regular heavy pruning and regrows fast enough to yield around 60 tonnes of green material per hectare a year as mulch, fertilizer and livestock fodder. Despite a daisy-family habit that scavenges phosphorus from the soil and returns it in the cut leaves, it does not actually fix nitrogen. The leaves make a protein-rich feed for cattle and sheep, but pigs tolerate only a small share of it in their ration and poultry should get almost none. Left uncut it flowers, seeds prolifically, and roots wherever a stem touches the ground, so a regular cutting schedule is what keeps it from spreading into open ground.