Home > Pulse (legume)
The Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations ( FAO) defines pulses as annual leguminous crops yielding from one to 12 grains or seeds of variable size, shape and colour within a pod. Pulses are used for food and animal feed.The term pulses, as used by the FAO, is reserved for crops harvested solely for the dry grain and therefore excludes green beans and green peas, which are considered vegetable crops.
Also excluded are crops which are mainly grown for oil extraction, like soybeans and peanuts, and crops which are used exclusively for sowing (clovers, alfalfa).
Pulses are important food crops due to their high protein and essential amino acid content.
Like many leguminous crops, pulses play a key role in crop rotation due to their ability to fix nitrogen.
1 Statistics
India is both the world's largest producer and the world's largest importer of pulses.
Canada, Myanmar, Australia and the United States are significant exporters of pulses. (Note: these are the four most significant suppliers of India's imports, in that order.)
The vast majority of leguminous crops grown in the United States are peanuts and soybeans used as cattle feed and for extraction of vegetable oil, which are not considered pulses (see above).
2 Classification of pulses
FAO recognizes 11 primary pulses.
- Dry beans (Phaseolus spp. including several species now in Vigna)
- Kidney bean, haricot bean, pinto beanPinto beans or frijoles are a variety of common bean Phaseolus vulgaris Fabaceae). They are a common bean in the southwestern United States and Mexico. As well as being high in protein, they are an excellent source of iron, potassium, selenium, and folate, navy bean (Phaseolus vulgaris)
- Lima beanThe Lima bean Phaseolus lunatus Fabaceae) is a legume, originally from Peru. It is also known as the butter bean . They are usually used as a dry bean which is soaked and then cooked after the soaking water is discarded, and then the cooking water discard, butter bean (P. lunatus)
- Adzuki bean (P. angularis syn.Vigna angularis)
- Mung beanThe mung bean is the seed of Vigna radiata ( Fabaceae), which is native to India. It is also known as green gram or golden gram . The mung bean is one of many species recently moved from Phaseolus to Vigna and is still often seen cited as Phaseolus aureus, golden gram, green gram (Vigna radiata syn Phaseolus aureus[1])
- Black gram, Urd (P. mungo)
- Scarlet runner bean (P. coccineus)
- Rice bean (P. calacaratus)
- Moth bean (P. aconitifolius syn. Vigna aconitifolius)
- Tepary beanThe Tepary bean Phaseolus acutifolius Fabaceae) is native to the southwestern US and Mexico and has been grown there by the native peoples since pre-Columbian times. It is more drought-resistant than the common bean Phaseolus vulgaris and is grown in dese (P. acutifolius)
- Dry broad beans (Vicia spp.)
- Horse bean (Vicia faba var. equina)
- Broad bean(Vicia fava var. major)
- Field bean (Vicia faba var. minor)
- Dry peas (Pisum spp.)
- Garden pea (Pisum sativum)
- Protein pea (Pisum arvense)
- Chickpea, Garbonzo, Bengal gram (Cicer arietinum)
- Dry cow pea, Black-eyed_pea, blackeye bean (Vigna sinensis)
- Pigeon pea, cajan pea, congo bean (Cajanus cajan)
- Lentil (Lens culinaris, also Lens esculenta [2])
- Bambara bean , bambara groundnut, earth pea (Voandzeia subterranea)
- Vetch, common vetch (Vicia sativa)
- Lupins (Lupinus spp.)
- Minor pulses include:
- Lablab , hyacinth bean (Dolichos lablab)
- Jack bean , sword bean (Carnavalia spp.)
- Winged bean (Psophocarpus teragonolobus)
- Velvet bean (Stizolobium spp.)
- Yam bean (Pachyrrizus erosus)
