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Planting
Days to maturity
Seasonal yields
Sow indoors · Direct sow · Transplant outdoors
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Plant · P-1155
White Tephrosia
Tephrosia candida
White Tephrosia is a fast-growing nitrogen-fixing shrub planted as a green manure and living hedge across the seasonally dry tropics, packing three to three and a half meters of dense growth into a single season. Farmers cut it two or three times a year for mulch, and the cut material also raises the soil's phosphorus and potassium as it breaks down. Livestock will not touch the leaves - buffaloes and goats leave it alone - and the roots and bark are traditionally pounded into a fish poison, so cuttings should stay well away from ponds and stock feed. It needs frost-free warmth and acidic, free-draining soil, and will not tolerate standing water.
Record at a glance
Growing profile
- Sun
- Full Sun · Partial Sun
- USDA zone
- USDA 10–12
- Soil
- Sand · Loam
- Moisture
- Moist · Well-Drained · Dry
Vertical layer
Shrub- Soil pH
- 4.5–6.5
- Plant type
- Perennial
- Mature height
- 9.8–11.5 ft
- Mature spread
- 9.8–11.5 ft
- Plant spacing
- Not yet recorded
- Root type
- Not yet recorded
- Spread pattern
- Seed
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The deeper layer
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- Primary
- Locked ecological function
- Secondary
- Locked ecological function
- Byproduct
- Locked ecological function
Behind the record
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