Pods and Seeds

Legumes are part of an economically significant plant family that falls into the vast botanical category of Eudecots. Known also as the pea family bean family, or pulse family, legumes are cultivated as a food source but are equally important to farmers as they are used to improve the nitrogen content of the soil.

A legume is a simple dried fruit that is contained in a long pod that opens along a seam on two sides. Legumes live in a symbiotic relationship with bacteria that live in nodules on their roots. These bacteria help feed the plant by processing nitrogen from the air into compounds that the plants can use, enriching the soil in which they grow. This is why farmers alternate their crops in the fields. A legume crop is used to enrich the soil with nitrates, and the following year the same crop bed will be used for a different crop that will benefit from being planted in the nitrate-enriched soil.