Maximum Yield Cannabis Canada 2017 November/December | Page 34

cycl
legumes
legumes
DELICIOUS & NUTRITIOUS
FOR BOTH YOU AND
YOUR HYDRO SYSTEM
While pulses like dried lentils are
cheap enough to buy at the grocery
store, fresh legumes have a place in
your hydroponic garden. Not only are
they delicious and nutritious, but their
nitrogen-fixing properties can benefit
your system. | by Lynette Morgan
L
eguminous plants—which include peas,
beans, lentils, alfalfa, chickpeas, carob,
tamarinds, soybeans, and peanuts—are staple
food crops worldwide and are consumed almost
daily in a range of different forms. While
commodity crops such as pulses (which are part
of the legume family, though “pulse” refers only
to the dry seed) are cheap and readily avail-
able, the tender and gourmet fresh versions of
legumes are well worth a place in a hydroponic
garden. In fact, they are often grown as commer-
cial greenhouse crops. A legume is a plant in
the Fabaceae (or Leguminosae) family, which
produces seed pods and have the important
characteristic of forming a symbiotic relation-
ship with nitrogen-fixing bacteria contained in
nodules on the plant’s root system. Thus, in soil
production, legumes can play an important role
in crop rotation and nutrition and this benefit is
not just limited to outdoor farming systems.
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grow cycle
Germinating pea seeds.