Stylosanthes Hamata Grass - 0.5 kg Seeds

Stylosanthes hamata, Caribbean stylo or verano stylo (Stylosanthes hamata), is a hardy perennial pasture legume rather than a tree, grown for high-quality forage and soil improvement. As a legume it fixes atmospheric nitrogen, enriching poor soils and making it a key component of improved tropical pastures and silvi-pasture systems.

It forms a low, spreading, much-branched herb that stays green into the dry season, providing nutritious grazing and cut-and-carry fodder for cattle and goats. The plant is extremely drought and acid-soil tolerant and is widely sown on degraded grazing land and wastelands across the dry tracts of central and southern India.

• Family: Fabaceae (legume)
• Native region: tropical Americas and the Caribbean
• Mature height: 0.3–0.6 m
• Growth rate: fast

Sowing the seed: lightly scarify or rub the hard seed coat to break dormancy, then broadcast or drill the seed shallowly (about 1 cm) into a prepared seedbed at the start of the rains. Germination is rapid, usually within 7–14 days. The crop establishes quickly, reseeds itself naturally and needs little care once a stand is set.