Pulses

A pea is usually the small round seed or the seed-pod of the legume Pisum sativum. Each pod contains a few peas. Though regarded as a vegetable in cooking, from botanic point of view it is a fruit. Pisum sativum is an annual plant, with a life cycle of one year. It is a cool season crop that grows in various parts of the world; it can be planted from winter through to early summer depending on location. The average pea weighs between 0.1 and 0.36 grams. The species can be used as a fresh vegetable, frozen or canned, but is also grown to produce dry peas like the split pea.

Peas can be of three types: green, yellow and sweet peas.

A pulse is an annual leguminous crop yielding from one to twelve grains or seeds of variable size, shape, and colour within a pod. Pulses are used for food and animal feed. The term pulse, as used by the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), is reserved for crops harvested solely for the dry grain. This excludes green beans and green peas, which are considered vegetable crops. Also excluded are crops that are mainly grown for oil extraction (oilseeds like soybeans and peanuts), and crops which are used exclusively for sowing (clovers, alfalfa). However, many of the varieties so classified and given below are also used as vegetables, with their beans in pods while young cooked in whole cuisines and sold for the purpose; for example black eyed beans, lima beans and Toor or pigeon peas are thus eaten as fresh green beans cooked as part of a meal. Pulses are important food crops due to their high protein and essential amino acid content. Like many leguminous crops, pulses play a key role in crop rotation due to their ability to fix nitrogen.

Classification. Variety of pulses FAO recognizes 11 primary pulses.