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Sesbania rostrata is a fast-growing, semi-aquatic leguminous shrub or small tree, grown mainly as a green manure to enrich soil with nitrogen. It thrives in warm, wet conditions and grows best when it has plenty of moisture and sun.
Sesbania rostrata is a small semi-aquatic leguminous tree, in the genus Sesbania. It forms a symbiotic relationship with Gram-negative rhizobia which leads to the formation of nitrogen fixing nodules on both stem and roots.
It is mainly used as green manure to improve soil fertility due to its fast growth, high biomass production and ability to convert large amounts of atmospheric nitrogen into a usable form for plants. Other applications include production of high quality forage for livestock and it is a source of fuel-wood.
S. rostrata can be propagated vegetatively (from stem-cuttings or ratooning) or from seed. It takes 50 to 60 days to grow. Plants propagated from cuttings grow 2 to 2.5 times faster than seeded plants in the first 42 days. S. rostrata grows naturally in waterlogged and alluvial soils. It tolerates freely drained, poorly drained, and flooded soils with moderate fertility, though it does not grow well in heavy clay soils. S. rostrata tolerates a pH down to 4.3 to slightly alkaline, but nitrogen-fixation is reduced in acidic conditions. It is adapted to low and moderate salinity but seed germination and growth decreases as salinity concentration increases. The ideal water requirement is 600–1000 mm rainfall. It is a tropical plant with an optimal temperature of 25 °C.
The addition of lime in highly acidic soils and phosphorus in soils with low fertility improves growth and nitrogen fixation of S. rostrata. It fixes large amounts of nitrogen in only 6–8 weeks if the appropriate strain of Azorhizobium caulinodans is present in the soil. S.
S. rostrata is primarily used as a green manure to improve soil fertility. It can accumulate 100 kg/ha of nitrogen in 50 days. It can be used in alley-cropping systems and as a trap crop for insect pests in soybean and for nematodes such as Hirschmanniella oryzae and H. spinicaudata, which affect rice crops. It is used for livestock feed, it is eaten by sheep, goats, and sometimes camels, but unpalatable to cattle. In some countries leaves are eaten by people, and it is also a source of fuelwood, dry stems serve as a fuel in Madagascar.
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Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Sesbania rostrata 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.
