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Planting
Days to maturity
Seasonal yields
Sow indoors · Direct sow · Transplant outdoors
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Plant · P-1154
Sesban
Sesbania sesban
Sesban is a fast-growing, short-lived nitrogen-fixing shrub or small tree, often gone within a decade but productive the whole time it stands. A single season of it ahead of maize can more than double the following grain yield with no fertiliser applied, and it coppices hard for a steady supply of mulch, green manure, forage and firewood that burns hot with little smoke. It tolerates both flooding and drought once established, growing floating roots when the ground goes under water. Livestock keepers need to watch the dose: the leaves poison poultry outright, and the seeds are toxic to people unless soaked for three days before cooking.
Record at a glance
Growing profile
- Sun
- Full Sun
- USDA zone
- USDA 10–12
- Soil
- Sand · Loam · Clay
- Moisture
- Moist · Wet
Vertical layer
Sub-Canopy- Soil pH
- 5–7
- Plant type
- Perennial
- Mature height
- 13.1–23 ft
- Mature spread
- 16.4 ft
- Plant spacing
- Not yet recorded
- Root type
- Fibrous-shallow
- Spread pattern
- Seed
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The deeper layer
Plan what comes next.
- Primary
- Locked ecological function
- Secondary
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- Byproduct
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Behind the record
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