Vicia+faba



=//**Vicia faba//= =//Common names of Vicia faba*//*=


 * Broad bean, Faba bean, Horsebean, Windsorbean, and Tickbeans

=**Uses**=


 * Cultivated faba bean is used as human food in developing countries and as animal feed, mainly for pigs, horses, poultry and pigeons in industrialized countries. Faba bean has been considered as a meat extender or substitute and as a skim-milk substitute. Sometimes grown for green manure, but more generally for stock feed. Large-seeded cultivars are used as vegetable. Roasted seeds are eaten like peanuts in India. Straw from faba bean harvest fetches a premium in Egypt and Sudan and is considered as a cash crop. The straw can also be used for brick making and as a fuel in parts of Sudan and Ethiopia.



USDA Website http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=VIFA

Harvesting
 * When the crop is meant for dry seed, it is harvested when fully mature, and when grown for consumption as a vegetable, it is harvested green. The most common harvesting system is to pull and thresh the crop by hand; however, hand harvesting is costly compared to mechanized harvesting.





Salt seed springs (seeds for harvesting) http://www.saltspringseeds.com/catalog/index.cfm?categoryid=25

Identification Vicia faba is an annual herb with coarse and upright stems, unbranched 0.3-2 m tall, with 1 or more hollow stems from the base. The leaves are alternate, pinnate and consist of 2-6 leaflets each up to 8 cm long and unlike most other members of the Genus, it is without tendrils or with rudimentary tendrils. Flowers are large, white with dark purple markings, borne on short pedicels in clusters of 1-5 on each axillary raceme usually between the 5 and 10th node; 1-4 pods develop from each flower cluster, and growth is indeterminate though determinate mutants are available. About 30% of the plants in a population are cross-fertilized and the main insect pollinators are bumblebees. There is a robust tap root with profusely branched secondary roots.