Sun hemp seeds/Crotalaria juncea

Product Description

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According to Duke (1981), the common names of Crotalaria juncea are sunnhemp, Indian hemp, Madras hemp, brown hemp, and sannhemp. Other names applied include sunn hemp (McLeod, 1982), and sunn (Burton and Martinez, 1980).

Scientific Name

The scientific name is Crotalaria juncea L

Seed Description

According to McKee seeds of Crotalaria spp. remain viable for a number of years. Deterioration is slow and gradual, unless during or subsequent to harvest the seed has been scarified, that is scratched to aid germination. Once the seed is, scarified, deterioration is much more rapid, but even then it remains viable for several years under good storage conditions. The percentage of hard seed is high. Since threshing with an ordinary thresher may scarify only 40% of the seed, about 60 % or more hard seed will ordinarily remain in untreated seed and this will produce volunteer growth in cultivated fields for a number of years without reseeding. The weight of crotalaria seed is about 60 lbs. per bushel.

Seedling Description

Crotalaria juncea seedlings are tender and susceptible to mechanical damage. This may restrict its use as a relay intercrop where field operations would occur at this stage (Yost and Evans, 1988).

Mature Plant Description

This is a tall herbaceous shrubby annual, 1-3 m tall, with vegetative parts covered with short, downy hairs, taproot long and strong with many well-developed lateral shoots and numerous branched, lobed nodules up to 2.5 cm in diameter. Stems are up to 2 cm in diameter. Flowers are bright yellow and showy (Duke, 1981). Plants branch at about 75 cm above the ground when not crowded, but branching is higher and sparser when grown in the high populations favored for green manure or fiber production