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Centrosema pubescens
Also called Centro, Butterfly Pea, Sentro
Centro (Centrosema pubescens) is a low, sprawling tropical legume grown mainly as livestock forage and cover crop, though it can also climb. It thrives in warm, sunny, reasonably moist conditions and fixes nitrogen in the soil through root bacteria.
Centrosema pubescens, common name centro or butterfly pea, is a legume in the family Fabaceae, subfamily Faboideae, and tribe Phaseolae. It is native to Central and South America and cultivated in other tropical areas as a forage for livestock.
Seeds of Centrosema pubescens have a mechanical dormancy that has to be broken by soaking the seeds for 3–5 minutes in water at 85 °C. After the seeds have passed the dormancy breaking treatment, they can be inoculated with Rhizobium and planted with a no-till planter. A typical seed planting depth is 2.5–5 cm. The shallower depth is used when the soil moisture is appropriate, but when the soil is dry the seed should be planted deeper to reach moisture.
Centrosema pubescens is a promising forage in regions looking for an alternative to enhance the protein content of livestock feed. It is easy to manage and improves soil nitrogen levels. It does not require any special technology or equipment to plant.
Centrosema pubescens is a good source of protein, calcium and potassium for cattle as forage. It can be used to feed broiler chickens and broiler finishers as leaf meal in a quantity up to 20 g per day. More than that causes reduction in growth performance. This is a very cheap alternative to other sources of protein that are usually more expensive, like soybean.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Centrosema pubescens by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
