Fast growing, climbing leguminous cover crops such as the velvet beans can be used to reclaim weed-infested, degraded soils in the humid tropics, especially land covered by the grass Imperata cylindrica; they climb over the grass leaves and shade the grass out if their cover lasts long enough. Tolerance of two species of velvet bean to eroded soils was investigated by removing topsoil and directly sowing into the subsoil; plots where topsoil was not removed were used as a control. The response to small amounts of P fertilizer and lime was also tested. Removal of the topsoil resulted in retarded growth of both species, in increased dry matter content of the shoot, in decreased specific leaf area and in increased leaf weight ratio, due to shorter internodes [...]