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Leguminosae
Common names
Amendoim de veado, faveirà, and alfalfa Paulista (Brazil).
Description
A twining herb with angular, hairy stems and oblong-lanceolate
leaflets slightly pubescent above. It resembles glycine, but the pod, which
is 4 to 5 cm long and rusty-hairy, has a recurved beak (the beakage of
the glycine pod is shorter and straight). Seeds of T. uncinatus are yellowish
and oblong.
Distribution
Occurs from the West Indies, through Mexico, Central and South
America, to the states of Minas Gerais, Bahia and São Paulo in Brazil.
Characteristics
A summer-growing annual or perennial preferring the hotter
areas of the tropics, is sensitive to cold and becomes diseased under low
temperatures. It flowers in 126 days in the Kimberley area of northern
Australia (Parbery, 1967a).
It prefers a rainfall in excess of 750 mm; grows vigorously in the
wet season (van Rensburg, 1967) but performs poorly in the dry season;
Evans (1968), however, says that it has some drought and cold tolerance
(CPI 25937). It has a hard seed content of 68 percent (Otero, 1952). It
has a low fertility requirement. Buller et al. (1970) obtained 2.45 tonnes
DM/ha under low fertility conditions and 3.61 tonnes in a high fertility
regime at Matão, Brazil, where it was the poorest of eight tropical
legumes, though better than Desmodium intortum at the low fertility level.
Andrew and Pieters (1970a) found that T. uncinatus was severely affected
by potassium deficiency. The symptoms were first evident as very small
necrotic spots occurring interveinally near the margins of the leaflets.
In the early stage, they were only evident on the upper surface of the
leaflet but subsequently both surfaces were affected. With increasing severity,
the necrotic areas enlarged and the margins of the leaflets became chlorotic.
This condition progressed toward marginal necrosis of the leaflet with
full interveinal chlorosis and prominent venation on the undersides of
the leaflets. Associated with this marginal necrosis the lateral margins
of the leaflets curled inward and in the very severe form a rolled tube
effect was shown. Severely affected leaves at the base of the plant abscissed
and the partially affected leaves attained a "sleeping position", with
lateral leaflets folded against each other. Parbery (1967a) found that
it responded to 100 kg./ha nitrogen in northern Australia.
T. uncinatus establishes quickly and gives a good cover of palatable
leafy growth. It is resistant to trampling and nematodes, and Evans (1968)
believes that it may be a useful pioneer legume in pasture mixtures. Its
recovery from cutting is poor (van Rensburg, 1967; Parbery, 1967a); van
Rensburg harvested 1 294 kg./ha dry matter in one cut at Mt. Makulu, Zambia,
but it did not give a second cutting. Parbery (1967a) harvested 7 076 kg./ha
without added nitrogen, and 12 146 kg./ha with 100 kg./ha applied nitrogen.
The protein content was 17.6 percent. Otero (1952) gave the chemical analysis
of the air-dried material as 9.88 percent moisture, 13.17 percent crude
protein, 2.18 percent fat, .35.68 percent crude fibre, 31.54 percent nitrogen-free
extract and 7.55 percent ash.
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