Velvet Beans brochure

Velvet bean is an indigenous legume and a tropical crop native to Southeast Asia. It is related to soybean and kudzu and also is found in Africa, India, and the West Indies. In the Philippines, it has been planted as intercrop in backyard kaingin of our ancestors. Some farmers in the south use this fast -growing vines as shade around their homes and as survival food. The velvet bean is a renovating plant, having the power to enrich the land on which it grows. Velvet beans and all the commonly-cultivated leguminous plants, have the advantage over other cultivated plants of being able to obtain a large proportion of their nitrogen from the air. Nitrogen, if purchased in commercial fertilizers costs more expensive. It is several times more expensive than an equal weight of phosphoric acid or potash, two compounds that make fertilizers useful but costly.

Department of Agriculture AGRICULTURAL TRAINING INSTITUTE Cordillera Administrative Region BSU Compd., La Trinidad, Benguet