Anyone have experience with monkeytail cowpeas?

[hoodat]

The monkeytail cowpeas are still relatively scarce. They were collected in Africa as part of the UCD seed saver program. It is supposed to be a rambler that is very productive as well as drought and heat resistant. I got some seed from Baker Creek and want to give them a go for several reasons. First of all they improve the ground. They also have foliage that is liked by rabbits and can be dried as hay. On top of that they produce quite a few edible seeds about the size of crowders.
If anyone has tried them I'd appreciate any tips.

 

[bj taylor]

hi hoodat; please keep posting on your experience w/these. as Texas dries out more and more, we are looking for the tough, drought tolerant plants that can nourish our animals as well as enrich our soils.

 

[MontyJ]

I've never heard of them. How do they improve the soil? Is it nitrogen fixing or do the roots help break up tougher soil? If the latter, I wonder how they would tolerate a fall planting as a cover crop. Definately keep us posted. I'm always looking for a better cover crop.

 

[hoodat]

I've never heard of them. How do they improve the soil? Is it nitrogen fixing or do the roots help break up tougher soil? If the latter, I wonder how they would tolerate a fall planting as a cover crop. Definately keep us posted. I'm always looking for a better cover crop.

I doubt they'd work as a Fall/winter cover crop. All cowpeas I know of are heat lovers. They're nitrogen fixers with heavy root systems that add organic matter to the soil after they are harvested or die back. They might help in clay soil if they don't get waterlogged.

 

[MontyJ]

That might be a good fallow year crop then. Something to bust up the soil and keep it alive. This needs more looking into.

 

[baymule]

Ya'll tickle me when you call the Southern staff of life "cowpeas". I like ta' nevah figgered thet out! What? Waste peas on COWS??? And then ya'll call English peas just peas. I have English peas growing right now, they are loaded with immature pods. We hope to get a few pickin's before the heat frys them. Monkeytail peas sound intriguing. Hoodat, keep us informed!

 

[897tgigvib]

Bay, our Texan neighbors we had when I was a little kid were from the other side of Texas, about 15 eastern states north up to somewhere outside Amarillo.

They called them Cowbeans, pronounced of course, Kaaa-beenz. I do recall him saying the Black-aaahd Cowbeans would have to do.

I actually wondered if they were calling them that just to help us Californians understand.

Oh! The Chiles they made from them!

 

[hoodat]

Ya'll tickle me when you call the Southern staff of life "cowpeas". I like ta' nevah figgered thet out! What? Waste peas on COWS??? And then ya'll call English peas just peas. I have English peas growing right now, they are loaded with immature pods. We hope to get a few pickin's before the heat frys them. Monkeytail peas sound intriguing. Hoodat, keep us informed!

They're called cowpeas because cows can eat both the foliage and the dry seeds just as they come from the ground. In Africa they are grown as both fodder for animals and human food. Regular beans contain toxins that are nullified by cooking. The foliage of regular beans has to be dried and used like hay or it will cause digestive problems in animals.
They are often planted as wild forage crops for deer, wild rabbits and birds; a tipoff that if you have deer or rabbit problems cowpeas will be a magnet for them.
Unfortunately most of the black eyed peas in markets are the California variety, the most tasteless of all the cowpeas. A lot of people who have never eaten black eyed peas before get turned off right at the beginning if they get the California variety. Black eyed peas grown in the South are quite tasty and the crowders are even better.

 

[baymule]

You are right about the deer Hoodat. The best way to go deer hunting is to plant a pea patch.

 

[897tgigvib]

The deer in this forest eat any plant at all. I've seen them eat poison oak a lot, they know how to eat the wild salmonberries and wild blackberries whose thorns leave those tiny pieces you can't even see. They've eaten a friend's tomato plants that have nightshade in them. I've even seen absolutely and definitely deadly poisonous mushrooms one evening, gone the next morning after seeing deer there.

Deer seem immune to natural plant and fungus poisons!

Actually, I do wonder if those poisons carry over into deer meat.