Annual vetch green manure is used by gardeners as a green fertilizer, especially rich in nitrogen. Nitrogen-fixing bacteria live on the roots of the plant, forming thickenings.

These microorganisms bind atmospheric nitrogen and fix it in a bound form, which is most available for plant nutrition. To increase the nutritional value, vetch is sometimes combined with other green manure crops - most often cereals - rye and oats.

Fertilizing the soil is most important in the spring, when they are planted in the beds. vegetable seedlings, leaves begin to appear on the berry bushes, the trees bloom and need pollination.

Green vetch fertilizer - plant characteristics

The plant belongs to the legume family. It is also called field pea. Of the species growing in middle lane, highlight annual species and perennials. The stem can be straight or creeping - with tendrils, with the help of which the vetch clings to other plants and rises towards the light. Flowers are:

• white;

• purple;

• yellow;

• blue.

Vetch blooms for three months - from June to August. At the end of flowering, round, flattened beans ripen.

The root system is taprooted and branched, which makes it possible to absorb nutrients from the lower layers of the soil.

Especially appreciated for fast growth and a set of green mass. While other green manures are sprouting, the vetch is already cut off and plowed into the soil to rot.

Seed peas are used not only as fertilizer for the garden. It is eaten with pleasure by pets, especially in the spring when there is a deficiency of vitamins in food. To prepare hay for future use, vetch is grown as green manure, the roots are left in the soil for fertilizer, and the green mass is mowed and dried. In terms of nutritional value, seed peas are comparable to alfalfa, which is used in medical purposes and are eaten.

Spring vetch is used as green manure and honey plant. Beekeepers specially plant plantations around the apiary. The result is aromatic meadow honey, rich in vitamins, minerals, sugars and fructose.

Agricultural technology of green manure wiki

Two plant varieties—spring and winter vetch green manures—differ in frost resistance and tendency to lodging. Winter varieties are planted in the fall and the seedlings go under the snow, continuing to grow green mass in the spring. This method is beneficial because you can mow the greens earlier, embed them in the ground, and plant the seedlings on fertilized soil earlier.

Spring vetch is sown as green manure in early spring. When the buds appear, they begin to mow or trim with a flat cutter. It is not recommended to keep it in the garden for longer. During the summer drought, the plant dries out, the stems become coarser and there is less green mass, which is unprofitable from the point of view of fertilizing the soil.

Lignified shoots will rot in the ground longer and delay the planting of main crops. You will have to use an accelerated method of decomposing plant residues - water them with EO preparations or mulch the greens with sawdust and straw to create a moist environment.

Green manure agricultural technology for vetch differs from forage farming. The fact is that when vetch is sown together with cereals, corn or sunflower, the amount of alkaloids in its tissues - toxic substances that give bitterness to the grass - decreases.

This mixture is suitable for animal nutrition.

Nature of impact on soil and vegetable crops

Thanks to the deep root system of green manure vetch, the soil is naturally loosened without the need to dig up the area.

Rotting in the ground, the root leaves empty areas that are filled with water and air. At the same time, soil microorganisms that participate in the processing of organic matter multiply better. By digging up the soil, people partially destroy beneficial microflora - they die in ultraviolet rays

and when the top layer of soil dries out.

Alkaloids - vicin and vicinin - disinfect soil and reduce acidity. After planting vetch, there are no signs of damage to vegetables and root crops by wireworms and nematodes.

Video: Oats and vetch Vegetables grown using vetch give increased yield by 40%. But the plant is not suitable for all crops. It is not advisable to sow vetch when legumes such as peas, beans, and lentils grew on the plot in front of it. Each family has its own diseases.

Frequent sowing of plants of the same family leads to outbreaks of fungal diseases and crop loss.

Spring and winter vetch – which one is better to sow?

Soils poor in minerals should be fertilized with complex mixtures containing potassium and phosphorus. Nitrogen supplements do not need to be applied, since nodule bacteria live on the roots of legumes and an increased nitrogen content is harmful to the plant. Fertilizing with minerals will benefit the soil, as they will return to the soil in the form of organic compounds suitable for feeding vegetable crops.

Minerals should be added immediately after harvesting and clearing the area of ​​tops. Fertilizer is scattered onto moist soil and covered with soil using a rake. Then the soil is watered again and winter or spring vetch beans are sown. From August to November sowing peas will have time to grow greenery twice. Therefore, at the end of August you can plant a spring variety, and after planting it in the ground, sow a winter variety, which will germinate in the spring immediately after the snow melts.

It is most profitable to plant green manure vetch in the fall, since during the winter the organic residues have time to completely decompose.

Sowing dates in spring and autumn

Spring sowing begins at the end of March, when the snow melts and the soil is moist. In cold regions, sow in early spring winter vetch like green manure.

For the whole summer season Can harvest three times, mowing and sowing the bed with new seeds. The plant sprouts quickly if you water the soil periodically. After three plantings and incorporation of green mass of spring or winter vetch into the soil, the soil restores the fertile layer.

By nutritional composition for vegetables, green fertilizer is equivalent to manure. But if there are no pets, then buying several centners of organic matter will be very expensive and unprofitable. In addition, manure does not contain phosphorus, which is important for the formation of the root system, so it will have to be added in the form of minerals.

What is the best way to incorporate green manure into the soil?

Choosing a method for incorporating green manure into the soil is a matter for the owner. But it’s worth knowing that you don’t have to put in extra effort to dig, since the roots have already done the job. At the same time, they did not turn over the layers of earth, allowing microorganisms to exist at their favorite depth.

Digging may be necessary only on heavy clay soils to plant green manure for the first time. But it is not carried out further, leaving this work to plants with a deep root system.

Experienced summer residents do not cut off spring vetch shoots, but make holes for seedlings of tomatoes and peppers directly in the crops. tall plants protect seedlings from wind and temperature changes. Cut green manure plants are placed under the roots of young seedlings, which protects the ground from freezing.

Plant combinations – oats and vetch

The combination of vetch and oats helps vetch to grow, since the cereals grow in height faster and serve as a support for peas, which, with the help of tendrils, cling to the tall shoots of their green manure neighbor.

Many legumes have long become favorite plants on the site. Not only do they produce a tasty harvest, but they are also known to enrich the soil with nitrogen through special agents on the roots. However, few people know their botanical name. They belong to a large genus of flowering plants - Vica. The plant (photo, seeds will be discussed in the article) is known as mouse peas- common vetch, beans - fava vetch. In addition, there are many other representatives widely used as food and

Rod Vika (peas)

The genus includes about 140 plant species, native to South America, Europe and North Africa. IN natural conditions peas grow in floodplains, in flooded meadows and forest edges, and in steppes. The bulk are rarely annual. The stem is most often of a climbing type, sometimes erect. The leaves are pinnate. The flowers are solitary and have a characteristic appearance: the calyx has a short tube and teeth, a flag with a dimly defined marigold, a blunt boat, wings with a plate.

Botanical description: common vetch

A plant whose description is probably familiar to many. It is also called "peas". It is an annual or biennial plant with a height of 20 to 80 cm. The stem can be erect or ascending, faceted, drooping or bare, with or without branching. The characteristic pinnate leaves have tendrils at the end, with which the pea clings to the support. The flowers are almost sessile, paired or solitary. The fruit is a bean, cylindrical or slightly flattened, up to 6 cm in length.

However, the plant should not be confused with a very similar, but still different species - the common pea. This is the most common and famous representative of the mentioned genus. Many varietal forms have been developed, differing taste qualities and seed size, ripening time. All of them are combined into three groups: shelling peas, sugar peas and brain peas.

Spread of seed peas

Vetch is a plant whose name in Latin is Vicia sativa. It is widespread in the European part of Russia, Western Siberia, the mountainous zone of the Caucasus and Crimea, and on the Kamchatka Peninsula. It can be found as a weed in fields, less often along roadsides, in garbage areas, and fallow lands. Development and growth proceed best in “company” with other herbs that support its creeping stem. Natural look It is quite cold-resistant and can withstand frosts down to -6 ° C. Vetch is a moisture-loving plant, especially during the period of bud formation and flowering, but otherwise it is unpretentious and undemanding to environmental conditions.

Use as fertilizer

Common vetch is an excellent green manure, known to mankind since ancient times. The main way to use it in this format is clean sowing and subsequent burying of the grown green mass into the soil. In terms of the level of action, such a fertilizer is compared to manure; the positive effect lasts for 4-5 years. In about three months, common vetch accumulates up to 30 kg of biomass per 10 m2, which contains a high content of nitrogen (160 g), potassium (200 g) and phosphorus (75 g).

Sowing and care

(vetch) is a generally unpretentious plant, but its cultivation has some peculiarities. Peas can grow in both light and heavy soil, but the pH prefers neutral. If the soil is acidic, then there will be inhibition of nodule bacteria on the roots; they will be small and poorly fix atmospheric nitrogen or may be completely absent.

Sowing is carried out in rows, the width between them should be 15-20 cm, between seeds - 5 cm. The depth of planting depends on the structure of the soil: on light soils - 7 cm, on heavy soils - 5 cm. In dry weather, it is recommended to lightly roll the soil after sowing, if it is wet, then there is no need to do this. Caring for green manure is extremely simple and consists of timely weeding and loosening the crust after rains and watering. Vetch is a long plant daylight hours, moisture-loving, but does not tolerate stagnant water.

Sowing time

There are two ways to sow peas.

In early spring as a precursor to more later cultures, for example cabbage. After growing green mass, it is buried in the soil even before flowering.

In early autumn or in the second half of summer, after growing and harvesting early cultures. In this case, the plant must be buried in the soil before frost occurs.

It is necessary to focus on the climatic conditions of the region.

Use as feed

Common vetch is a plant, beneficial features which is not limited to use as green manure. Its composition, based on dried material, includes up to 20% protein plant origin, a small amount of fiber and dietary fiber. When fresh, the leaves contain lysine, beta-carotene, some fat and water. All these characteristics allow the plant to be used as a complete animal feed. Green mass, hay, haylage, silage, crushed grains and grain flour are used. For these purposes, peas are usually cultivated with oats or barley, less often with wheat; sunflower, corn, and rye are added for silage.

In addition, vetch is a plant (photo presented in the article) that is an excellent honey plant. This fact makes it especially valuable for beekeeping. Abundant flowering lasts for a month approximately from early to mid June. The honey productivity indicator is the highest for hairy vetch (winter) - 140-200 kg per hectare of planting, for sowing it is much less - 20 kg/ha, for beans a little more - 20-40 kg/ha. This fact allows you to use plants to attract bees to your site. Thus, vetch, having good decorative qualities, can easily be planted in a vegetable garden or garden. It will attract pollinating insects and, on the contrary, will repel pests. The plant is an excellent neighbor for crops that love nitrogen: tomatoes, sweet peppers, lettuce, eggplants, carrots. Goes well with fruit trees and bushes.

Botanical characteristics

Vetch, translated as Vicia sativa, the plant has some other names, for example, sowing pea, vetch, horse pea, fodder pea, chaffinch, wild pea, konyakivka, passerine pea, goose pea, crane pea, giraffe, mouse pea, pea.

This herbaceous plant refers to annuals. Its root is quite long and branched. The stems of crane peas are hairy, grooved, recumbent at the bottom, and the tops are in an elevated state.

Leaves with tendrils, seven pairs, the lower ones obovate; the upper ones are linear-oblong. There are two flowers in their axils; The calyx is five-toothed, tubular, and hairy at the base. The corolla is moth-type, five-petalled; the wings are purple, the boat is white. The column is filamentous. There are ten stamens, they are fused with threads into one small bunch.

The fruit is represented by a small wide-line swollen bean, light yellow in color, less often they are gray or blackish. It is worth noting that this plant is excellent honey plant Thus, from one hectare twenty kilograms of aromatic beekeeping product are obtained.

Spreading

Sparrow peas are distributed throughout Russia; they are also found in Ukraine, Moldova, and Central Asia. This plant can be found in meadows and fields, between crops and bushes, along the edges of forests. It is found as a weed mainly in crops, much less often along roads, in garbage areas and fallow lands, as well as in gardens and vineyards.

Growing vetch

Wild peas are considered cold-resistant and belong to frost-resistant plants, as they can withstand low temperatures down to minus four degrees. In the flowering phase it needs good moisture, is moisture-loving during the budding period, and is practically undemanding to soils.

It does not grow on waterlogged and heavy soils; it prefers to be localized on light and less fertile soils, which contain a sufficient amount of calcium. Vetch is actively used for livestock feed in the form of green mass, as well as hay, silage, crushed grains, and grass meal.

The growth and development of mouse peas proceeds better in a mixture with other herbs, in fact, like other annual legumes. This creeping plant is adapted to growing with various supporting crops, for example, vetch is usually cultivated with oats, barley, and sometimes wheat.

This plant is planted for silage together with corn, sunflower, annual ryegrass, and rye; and for seeds - with barley or oats. When grown, seedlings usually appear at the end of the first or second week.

After emergence, branching begins approximately on the fifth day; flowering can occur within a month, and lasts from ten to thirty days. Seed ripening occurs four weeks after flowering.

Duration growing season varies from seventy to one hundred and twenty days. As for the maximum yield of green mass, it accumulates during the formation of beans. Common vetch is quite disease resistant. As for pests, in mixed crops, mouse peas are often affected by aphids.

Growing vetch on green manure

Vetch seeds are sown to a depth of two centimeters, a distance of at least seventy millimeters is maintained between the rows, or they are sown randomly scattering them over the entire area of ​​the intended planting. Optimal time sowing occurs at the end of April or at the beginning of May.

The sowing rate per hundred square meters corresponds to two kilograms of seeds. After the first shoots appear, it is recommended to use the drug “Baikal EM1” in solution as a top dressing; the concentration should correspond to a ratio of 1:1000.

During the period when budding begins, it is necessary to trim the plant and embed it in the soil using a cultivator or a flat cutter, while watering it in sufficient quantities with the prepared Baikal EM1 solution in the required concentration in order to speed up the fermentation process, as well as to create a favorable necessary microbiological background.

Incorporation of green mass of vetch-oat mixture into the soil should be carried out once or twice a season, with mandatory watering with the above solution, which will provide the soil with nutrients and essential microelements.

Application

Vetch is widely used for animal feed in in various forms For example, from this plant they produce nutritious green mass, hay, silage, make grass and grain flour, and also make crushed grains.

In addition, this plant is actively used as green manure. This means that vetch serves as a green fertilizer, significantly improving the properties of the soil and increasing its fertility by burying mouse peas in the ground.

In addition to chaffinch, green manure crops include rye, oats, oilseed radish, sweet clover, wheat, mustard, sunflower, in general, all those representatives of the flora that have a fairly abundant green mass.

As for the use of mouse peas in both traditional and folk medicine, this plant is not used for medicinal purposes.

Conclusion

If you live outside the city and have rabbits on your farm, then this grass will be their favorite treat.

Spring vetch can be used as a green fertilizer, fodder and honey crop. When used as green manure, it is valued for its early ripening.

Spring vetch is one of the most common annual legume grasses. Spring vetch provides high-quality feed. At 100 kg. Hay contains 46 feed units and 123 grams of protein per feed unit. The green mass of vetch reaches 60-70%. The yield of green vetch reaches 300 - 400 t/ha, hay - up to 60 - 80 t/ha. Vetch is usually grown in a mixture with oats, peas, cabbage and other crops.

The vetch root system is taprooted, branched, with growths of nodule bacteria.

Spring vetch has winter rye as its best predecessor.

Spring vetch is a valuable legume crop. She gives excellent green food and hay, used for preparing grass meal and laying haylage.

The green mass of vetch slowly coarsens, digestibility and biological value change little and it can be fed for a long time. 100 kg of green vetch contains 2.4 kg of digestible protein, hay - 8.2 kg, as a result of which vetch is a highly nutritious feed, primarily for cattle.

Vetch contains various mineral salts (calcium, phosphorus), vitamins and fats. Good vetch hay and green mass contain several tens of times more vitamins than cereal grains. It is especially rich in carotene (provitamin A).

Feeding animals with vetch feed sufficiently fully provides them with both minerals, and vitamins. According to availability nutrients good vetch-oat hay is not inferior to meadow hay.

Does not lose its nutritional qualities throughout winter period vetch haylage with oats and other crops. Mow crops to prepare haylage High Quality during the period from the beginning of flowering to the formation of beans.

Vetch grain contains 28-35% protein, as well as starch, fat, fiber, and a certain amount of vitamins. Crushed or ground grain can be included in combined feeds as a protein concentrate.

Vich flour is also used to flavor roughage and is especially necessary for fattening pigs. The introduction of this flour as a protein additive into concentrated feed makes it possible to obtain solid granular lard.

However, it must be taken into account that both grain and green vetch have a bitter taste due to the presence of glycosides, and when animals are fed pure vetch in large quantities, their appetite worsens. To avoid this, it is customary to sow vetch for food together with other plants, most often with oats.

Animals eat vetch straw well; its protein content reaches 9%.

Vetch is a good predecessor for other crops, due to its ability to fix air nitrogen and suppress weeds. Spring vetch mixed with oats is one of the best fallow crops.

Spring vetch seeds begin to germinate at a temperature of 2-3°C. The seedlings tolerate spring frosts well down to 6-7°C. Spring vetch is undemanding to heat. Economically optimal temperature to form vegetative organs 12-16°C, for seed ripening - 16-20°C. When grown for food, spring vetch requires a sum of temperatures of 900°C, and when grown for grain - 1900°C.

Spring vetch presents increased requirements to moisture. In years when the amount of precipitation during the period May - July ranges from 209 to 239 mm, vetch hay is produced from 40 to 65 centners per hectare. In years with insufficient precipitation in the spring-summer period (90-130 mm), the yield of vetch hay does not exceed 15 centners per 1 ha. The maximum need for water occurs during the flowering period. Favorable conditions For cultivation, spring vetch is stored in areas with precipitation of at least 450 mm per year.

To form 1 ton of hay, spring vetch consumes from the soil about 6 kg of P2O5, 15-17 kg of K2O, a lot of calcium and magnesium, as well as molybdenum. This crop succeeds in a variety of soils, but it grows best on cohesive soils characterized by high water-holding capacity. Plants develop well at a soil solution pH of 5.0-6.5.

By the beginning of flowering, spring vetch accumulates approximately 43-45% of the harvest. The maximum dry mass yield occurs during the bean formation phase. By the time flowering begins, the height of the plants does not exceed 50 cm, and by the time the beans form, it reaches 80 cm or more.

By the time the beans are formed, the above-ground mass accumulates greatest number protein and other nutrients. The stems of spring vetch slowly become coarser, so it must be harvested for hay during the phase of bean formation.

The length of the growing season, depending on the variety and weather conditions, ranges from 55 to 70 days when grown for hay and from 75 to 120 days when grown for seeds.

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