• Botanical Name: Pisum satvum L.
• Family: Fabaceae
• Chromosome number: 2n=14
• Origin : Central Asia, the near East, Abyssinia
and the Mediterranean region.
INTRODUCTION
• Pea, the famous plant in which G.H. Mendel worked out
Mendel Laws and Genetic Principles, is a noble and
aristocratic vegetable.
• Crop is cultivated for its tender and immature pods for use as
vegetable and mature dry pods for use as a pulse.
• Peas are highly nutritive and contain high content of digestible
protein, Carbohydrate, Vitamin-C, phosphorus and minerals.
• Like any legume crop, pea is an integral component of
sustainable agriculture due to its soil enriching and
conditioning properties.
USES
• Excellent food for human consumption taken either as a
vegetable or in soup.
• Large proportion is processed (canned, frozen or dehydrated)
for consumption in the off-season.
• Being N fixing legume, recognized as a soil building crop on
account of its value as a green manure crop.
• Pea is being used in a growing snack market.
ORIGIN
• Central Asia and the Mediterranean is considered to be
the centre of origin of pea.
BOTANY
• Field pea with coloured flowers belong to Pisum arvense
and the garden pea with white flowers belong to Pisum
sativum.
• Pea is an herbaceous annual plant with tap root system.
• Stem is upright, slender and usually single.
• Leaves pinnately compound with the rachis terminating in a
single or branched tendril. Large stipules present at base of
leaf.
• Style bends at right angle to ovary and stigma is sticky.
• Pods are straight or curved and seeds are smooth or
wrinkled.
VARIETIES
• Pea cultivars exhibit wide variation in height of stem, branching,
pod size, seeds per pod, shelling percentage, smoothness of seeds
(smooth / wrinkled) etc.
• The cultivars are grouped based on various characters:
Based on maturity period
– Early types – Ready for harvest by 65 days after sowing.
– Mid season types – Ready for harvest by 85-90 days after
sowing.
– Late main season types – Ready for harvest by 110 days after
sowing
Based on height of plant
– Bush or dwarf types - Early type
– Medium tall - Mid season type
– Tall - Late type and require support
Early Wrinkle seeded
• Arkel Matar Ageta 6 Azad P3
• Pant Matar 2 VL Ageti Matar 7 Early Badger
• Little Marvel Early December Jawahar Matar 3 & 4
Main season wrinkle seeded
• Bonneville Lincoln Azad P-1
• PB-89 Palam Priya VL-3
Early Smooth Seeded
• Asauji Lucknow Boniya Alaska
• Early Superb Meteor
Edible poded
• Sylvia Meteor Mithi Phali
• Alaska Early Superb
Palam Priya Lincoln
Edible poded
CLIMATE
• Pea is typically a cool season crop, thrives well in cool weather.
• Optimum temperature for seed germination is 220C.
• At higher temperature, decay of seedlings is more.
• Early stage of crop is tolerant to frost.
• But flowering and fruit development are adversely affected by
frost.
• Optimum monthly mean temp. for growth of plants is 10-
18.3oC.
• As temp. increases the maturity is hastened and yield is
reduced.
• Quality of pods produced is also low at high temperature due
to conversion of sugars to hemicellulose and starch.
SOIL
• Crop prefers well drained, loose and friable
loamy soil for early crop and clayey soil for
high yield.
• Ideal pH is 6.0-7.5 and it grows under alkaline
soil.
• If soil is acidic, liming is recommended.
SEASON
• In plains of North India, pea is sown from beginning
of October to middle of November.
• Yield is drastically reduced when crop is sown after
4th December.
• Crop sown in September will be susceptible to wilt
disease.
• In hills, pea is sown in March for summer crop and
in May for autumn crop.
SOWING AND SEED RATE
• Soil is prepared by disc ploughing followed by one or two
harrowing.
• Seeds are sown in flat or raised beds by broadcasting or by
dibbling at 2.5-5.0 cm depth.
• Early varieties are sown at a closer spacing of 30 x 5-10 cm
and the seed rates is 100-120 kg/ha.
• Mid- season and late varieties are sown at wider spacing of
45 x 10 cm.
• Late varieties are sown on either edge of raised beds which
are 120-150 cm wide with furrows in between.
• Seed rate for late varieties is 80-90 kg/ha.
• Overnight soaking of seeds in water or GA 3 (10 ppm)
improves germination.
MANURE AND FERTILIZERS
• High dose of N have adverse effect on nodule formation and
N fixation.
• N at 25 kg/ha is sufficient to stimulate early growth of pea.
• Phosphatic fertilizer increases yield and quality by increasing
N fixation and nodule formation.
• Potassium fertilizers also increase N fixation ability of plants
and yield.
• In addition to 10 tonnes of farmyard manure, a fertilizer dose
of 25 kg N, 70 kg P2O5 and 50 kg K2O are recommended for
one hectare and the entire dose is drilled at the time of
sowing seeds.
• If fertilizers are coming in contact with seeds, there will be
severe injury to seeds.
IRRIGATION
• Pea is sensitive to drought and excessive irrigation.
• Excessive irrigation immediately after sowing results in
poor germination due to hard crust formation.
• Excessive irrigation in earlier stage increases vegetative
growth.
• Light irrigations at 10-15 days intervals is given for pea.
• Flowering, fruit set and grain filling periods are critical
stages and care should be taken to irrigate crop at these
stages.
• Four irrigations at pre-bloom, pod set and fruit picking
stages are recommended for variety Bonneville under
Bangalore conditions.
WEED CONTROL
• Care should be taken to remove weeds in early stags
of crop.
• Lasso (alachlor) @ 0.75 kg a.i. or tribunal @ 1.5 kg
a.i./ha or pendemethalin 0.5 kg a.i. / ha as pre
emergence spray along with one hand weeding at
25-45 days after sowing is very effective for weed
control.
INTER-CULTURE
• When plants are 15 cm high, tall varieties should be stacked
with wooden sticks or twigs for trailing.
• Single row of stakes fixed in middle of raised bed will
support both rows of plants in each bed.
• Earthing up and hoeing is also important operations in peas
and helps in root development and growth of plants.
• Usually done after weeding and fertilizer application.
HARVESTING
• Since tender peas with high sugar content fetch premium
price in market, care should be taken to harvest pods at
correct maturity.
• During maturity, sugar content decreases and
polysaccharides and insoluble nitrogen compounds like
protein increases.
• Calcium migrates to seed coat and becomes tougher
during ripening.
• Toughness of seeds is determined using Tendrometer,
especially for processing purposes.
• Peas with low tendrometer reading is offered high price.
• Peas for fresh market are harvested when they are well
filled and when colour changes from dark green to light
green.
• Usually 3-4 harvests at 10 days intervals are possible.
• Green pod yield varies with duration of variety and is
– 2.5-4.0 t/ha for early varieties,
– 6.0-7.5 t/ha for mid season varieties
– 8.0-10.0 t/ha for late varieties.
• Shelling percentage ranges from 35-50.
• Seed yield varies from 2.0 to 2.5 t/ha.
• Peas after harvesting are packed in gunny bags or crates.
• Fresh unshelled peas can be stored for two weeks at 100C
and 90-95% RH.
PESTS AND DISEASES
• Stem fly, pea aphid, leaf miner and pod borer are major
pests and
• Wilt and Root-rot, powdery mildew, rust, Ascochyta blight
and pod rot are major diseases of pea.