Pigeon pea cold tolerance?

Good morning,
I’ve been sprouting some pigeon pea seedlings to transplant when it’s warm enough. While I am aware that they can not handle freezes and germinate at least 60 degrees, what if it’s a  seedling waiting to be transplanted? Can it make it through  …say low 50s? Fresno is usually hot by now so I thought for sure they’d be in the ground sooner, but although we’re hitting 90 degrees on several days coming up looks like it’s also dropping down to 54 at least twice at night in the next 10 days.

The common name "Pigeon pea" refers to many species. Can you name the species?

Hi Joseph,
Thanks for responding. They are Cajunus Cajun .

mine flower when it is 50 and below!!
I am in 9b, but southern hemisphere. mine grow into trees, and flower/bear beans in the cold season. right now it is 48 degrees F outside and they are happier than the proverbial pig in mud. I will probably get some frost this winter and the leaves will drop, but the ESTABLISHED trees will be fine.
I sow them year round, and let them fend for themselves. I don't know if I would change their environment as young plants, though.
I do find they take a LOOOONG time to get established. Always curious when I see them being grown as annuals, since for me they are bushes/trees.

Interesting! Thanks for responding! Might I ask how hot and cold it gets in your area? And so you’re saying they do well in your temperature but you probably wouldn’t transfer them at the stage they’re at now?
Also do you do anything to protect them when they are getting established? We can on rare occasions get down to 21 degrees  and so I assumed they would die after that but if you know of a way to help them make it through the frosts so as to become established I would love to hear it:)

in theory the temps shouldn't be too different, since you are in zone 9b in CA and I'm in 9b in Brazil. In practice, not sure.

I can't get the temp table to copy, but here is for the coldest months:

June: average temperature is 15.2 °C (59 °F), with a minimum of 9.7 °C (49.5 °F) and a maximum of 20.7 °C (69.3 °F).
On the coldest nights, the temperature usually drops to around 1.5 °C (35 °F). However, it dropped to -3 °C (26.6 °F) in June 1994.
There are on average 4.5 hours of sunshine per day....
The average humidity is 83%...

July, the coldest month of the year: average temperature 14.9 °C (59 °F), with a minimum of 8.9 °C (48 °F) and a maximum of 20.9 °C (69.6 °F).
On the coldest nights of the month, the temperature usually drops to around 1 °C (34 °F). However, it dropped to -4 °C (24.8 °F) in July 2000.
There are on average 5 hours of sunshine per day....
The average humidity is 80%...

And YES, i would wait to put them out til you are sure it's not going to get cold. Not sure about what your frost dates are like there. When it gets frost-temp cold here, they drop their leaves.

Also do you do anything to protect them when they are getting established? We can on rare occasions get down to 21 degrees  and so I assumed they would die after that but if you know of a way to help them make it through the frosts so as to become established I would love to hear it:)

And would you include 54 degrees as being too cold? That is the lowest it’s expected to be… weird year though.. much colder than the past. Normally our last frost date is absolutely no later than March.

Kimberly Agnese wrote:Also do you do anything to protect them when they are getting established? We can on rare occasions get down to 21 degrees  and so I assumed they would die after that but if you know of a way to help them make it through the frosts so as to become established I would love to hear it:)

I love these beans because they literally thrive on neglect. I don't water them during our 2-month dry periods, i plant them in garbage dirt (i have one growing in gravel right now, my neighbor has a big tree growing in construction rubble), i don't take any care of them at all. After I harvest the pods (we eat them green, like edamame) I will prune the big trees back. I just throw out the beans and don't even dig them in when i plant them. they're monsters.
But i didn't transplant them from seedlings, and you always have shock when you do that. Still, if you're worried about a sudden frost, i suppose you could protect them like anything else, with a trash can or sheet or something over them, but i would think by now you're past frost risk, right? i'm curious to see if they will be perennial in your area like they are for us! I hope so! they're such good plants.

Kimberly Agnese wrote:And would you include 54 degrees as being too cold? That is the lowest it’s expected to be… weird year though.. much colder than the past. Normally our last frost date is absolutely no later than March.

Mine will lose their leaves generally when we have a frost. That said, we had a freak frost about a month ago (talk about weird weather) and they didn't drop the leaves. Maybe they drop the leaves after making the beans? I will have to pay more attention this year.

Thank you so much! I learned about pigeon peas a couple years ago and have tried to get them to grow but always seemed to plant at the wrong time. One failure was in fall and another was direct seeding them in too much heat. They absolutely fascinate me and I haven’t really had anyone to converse with about them so your help means more than you know!!

I also tried to grow them a few times, with no luck. My mother in law gave me some beans a few years ago, i had no idea what they were, she said they were magic beans and we're both crazy gardeners so i said what the hell. I tried maybe 3 times with that batch of beans and nothing, not a damn thing. The last group of seeds, I put in and they all came up, but it took MONTHS. Maybe the others would have come up if I had waited more? Took forever, and I swear it seems like they stay at your seedling size for months and months. But when they grow, they grow like gangbusters. It's getting dark or I'd take a pic, but this tree is a TREE, as big as my mulberries, and I've topped the thing at least twice. I was just moaning that it didn't flower this year, and suddenly now the thing is flowering (just as our weather really turned into winter). They're 100 times easier to grow than other dry beans (here we have lot of mildew/aphid problems with beans, and it takes forever for them to dry on the vine), and I really like the green as well as the dry beans. Plus the rabbits like to eat the foliage and they can grow in crummy soil areas. I plan to always have them wherever I farm here.