The succulent vetch grass is a healthy fodder and a pretty plant. Vika
Spring sowing vetch is used as a fodder crop. It is a common annual herb belonging to the legume family. It is considered a high quality pet food and contains 46 feed units per 100 kg of dry grass. The mass of the green part of the grass can reach 70%. Vetch is grown along with peas, oats, cabbage and other crops.
Spring vetch belongs to the legume family, which includes 85 species. According to the description, the plant is very remarkable, it can be seen in the fields, meadows and squares.
The root system of spring culture is branched. The stem is erect, ascending, can reach 1 meter in height. The leaves are oblong, eight-pair, have a small notch. The plant has branched tendrils. The plant is drought-resistant, photophilous and undemanding to soils. But on heavy acidic soils grows poorly. It is resistant to cold, diseases and pests. The only exception is aphids, which often infect the culture.
The flowers are small, single, reach 2 cm in length, have a lilac or pinkish color. The fruit is a bean, which reaches a length of up to 6 cm. Each bean has 9 seeds. Seeds are spherical, slightly flattened.
The grass is pollinated on its own. The plant blooms in late June, early July. The harvest is at the beginning of August. You can harvest 2 times per summer.
Common vetch is a good honey plant. From a hectare you can collect up to 20 kg of fragrant and tasty honey. The seeds can be used as fertilizer. To do this, the plant is sown, and then buried in the ground. Such a fertilizer is not inferior to manure in terms of characteristics and retains its qualities for 5 years. Spring vetch has several wild species, which are very similar to the culture in all characteristics.
Spreading
The culture is widespread throughout the European part of Russia, in Central Asia and in the Caucasus. The plant grows in the forest-steppe zone of Moldova and Ukraine. Spring vetch is grown in the west of Siberia, in the foothills and mountainous parts of the Crimea.
Often found as a weed in wheat fields, the plant can be found in garbage places. Lilac flowers of common vetch are often found in parks and squares. Buy seeds leguminous plant available in specialized stores.
Ways to use
Sowing vetch refers to spring. She does not require special care and frost tolerant. Many gardeners call this crop seed peas. This culture has been known since ancient times. Even then, the grass was used as animal feed. Today, common vetch is grown as a fodder raw material, the plant is used as a fertilizer, and also as a rich source of silage and hay.
Quite often, spring vetch is sown on fields that are fallow. The plant is a good nitrogenous fertilizer, it loosens the soil, and also significantly improves it. qualitative composition, which is important before planting other crops.
Vika is well planted simultaneously with other crops. Grass prevents weeds from growing and also attracts insects that pollinate the flowers. It is a good fodder grass, with a high content of vegetable proteins. It is eaten by animals both directly on pastures and in the form of hay. It is possible to sow several times during the summer.
Landing features
Legumes are planted for fertilizer and as animal feed. Depending on this, the landing dates change.
- For fertilizer, the plant is planted simultaneously with other herbs. Spring crop prevents the growth of weeds. Mow it after the grass has grown enough.
- Grass can be planted for fertilizer at the end of August. In this case, she leans in early spring, until tomatoes, peppers and cabbage are planted.
- Grass is planted for animal feed in early spring, and mowed at the stage of appearance of beans. Vetch is planted along with other forage grasses, which helps to overcome the bitter taste of the forage grass.
The grass contains vitamins and many minerals. Most of them are during the flowering of the legume. Currently, spring vetch is considered one of the most valuable fodder crops.
Medicinal properties
Grass is actively used in traditional medicine. All parts of the plant are used to treat diseases. The herb has the following medicinal properties:
- Diuretic and laxative.
- Hemostatic and healing.
- Soothing.
Herbal compresses are used for the speedy maturation of abscesses and for fast cleansing ulcers and wounds. Prepared on the basis of spring grass alcohol tincture, which helps with a number of diseases. Healers recommend using a decoction of grass roots to treat hepatitis.
Common vetch is planted as a fodder plant in many countries of the world. This herb is rich in protein, minerals and vitamins. To muffle the bitter taste, the legume is planted along with other forage grasses.
Many legumes have long been favorite plants on the site. They not only give a tasty harvest, but also, as you know, enrich the soil with nitrogen with the help of special ones on the roots. However, few people know their botanical name. They belong to the numerous flowering genus - Vika. The plant (photo, seeds will be considered in the article) is known as mouse peas- sowing vetch, beans - vetch fava. In addition, there are many other representatives widely used as food and
Rod Vika (polka dots)
The genus includes about 140 plant species, which are native to South America, Europe and North Africa. AT vivo peas grow in floodplains, in flood meadows and edges, in the steppes. The bulk are less often annuals. The stem is most often climbing type, sometimes erect. Leaves are paired. Flowers solitary characteristic appearance: the calyx has a short trumpet and teeth, a flag with an indistinct nail, the boat is blunt, wings with a plate.
Botanical description: sowing vetch
A plant whose description is familiar, perhaps, to many. It is also called "sowing peas". This 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 paired leaves have tendrils at the end, with which the pea clings to the support. The flowers are practically 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 - peas. This is the most common and well-known representative of the mentioned genus. Many varietal forms have been bred, differing in taste, seed size, and ripening time. All of them are combined into three groups: peeling, sugar and brain peas.
Distribution of seed peas
Vika is a plant whose name in Latin sounds like Vicia sativa. It is widely distributed in the European part of Russia, Western Siberia, the mountainous zone of the Caucasus and Crimea, on the Kamchatka Peninsula. You can meet as a weed in the fields, less often on the side of roads, in garbage places, deposits. Development and growth proceeds best in the "company" with other herbs that support its creeping stem. natural look It is quite cold-resistant and withstands frosts down to -6 ° С. Vika is a moisture-loving plant, especially during the period of bud formation and flowering, otherwise it is unpretentious and undemanding to environmental conditions.
Use as a fertilizer
Sowing vetch is a wonderful green manure known to mankind since ancient times. The main way to use it in this format is pure sowing and subsequent instillation of the grown green mass into the soil. In terms of the level of action, such a fertilizer is compared with manure, the positive effect lasts for 4-5 years. In about three months, vetch accumulates up to 30 kg of biomass per 10 m 2, in which a high content of nitrogen (160 g), potassium (200 g) and phosphorus (75 g) is observed.
Sowing and care
(vetch) - the plant as a whole is unpretentious, but its cultivation has some features. Peas can vegetate in both light and heavy soils, but prefer neutral pH. If the soil is acidic, then nodule bacteria on the roots are inhibited, they will be small and poorly fixing 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 sowing depth depends on the structure of the soil: on light ones - 7 cm, on heavy ones - 5 cm. In dry weather, it is recommended to slightly roll the soil after sowing if If it's wet, then you don't have to. Green manure care is extremely simple and consists in timely weeding and loosening of the crust after rains and watering. Vika is a long daylight plant, moisture-loving, but not tolerant of stagnant water.
Sowing dates
There are two ways to sow peas.
In early spring as a precursor to later crops such as cabbage. After building up the 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 crops. In this case, the plant must be buried in the soil before the onset of frost.
It is necessary to focus on the climatic conditions of the region.
Use as feed
Sowing vetch - plant, beneficial features which are not limited to use as a green manure. Its composition, based on the dried material, includes up to 20% protein plant origin, a small amount of fiber and dietary fiber. AT 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 cultivated, as a rule, with oats or barley, less often with wheat; sunflower, corn, and rye are added for silage.
In addition, vetch is a plant (the photo is presented in the article), which is an excellent honey plant. This fact makes it especially valuable for beekeeping. Abundant flowering lasts for a month approximately from the beginning to the middle of June. The indicator of honey productivity is the highest in hairy (winter) vetch - 140-200 kg per hectare of planting, in sowing it is much less - 20 kg / ha, in beans a little more - 20-40 kg / ha. This fact allows you to use plants to attract bees to your site. So, common vetch, having good decorative qualities, may well be planted in the garden or in the garden. It will attract pollinating insects, and pests, on the contrary, will scare away. The plant is an excellent neighbor for nitrogen-loving crops: tomatoes, sweet peppers, lettuce, eggplant, carrots. Pairs well with fruit trees and shrubs.
An annual plant of the legume family.
Green fertilizer, fodder and honey crop.
As green manure is valued for early maturity (one of the highest among legumes), which makes it possible to use it in intermediate crops (before winter crops or after winter and early spring cereals and vegetables). Winter vetch manages to produce a crop of green mass for planting seedlings of tomatoes, peppers and other crops.
Green manure. After decomposition in the soil, the vetch biomass becomes an easily digestible fertilizer, and the soil is replenished with organic matter, humus. Thanks to nodule bacteria that develop on the roots, it extracts nitrogen from the air and accumulates it, although less than sweet clover, alfalfa and lupine, but more than any cruciferous and cereal green manure. Is very a good predecessor for crops demanding nitrogen.
Strict scientific experiments have established that tomatoes grown on vetch yield 45% more yield than without the help of green manure.
Soil-forming and soil-protective qualities. Drains, improves soil structure, increases its air and moisture capacity. Protects the soil from water and wind erosion (V. winter - even in winter). In addition, it retains snow, reduces soil freezing, which contributes to a greater accumulation of moisture.
Phytosanitary qualities. Heals the soil. It improves the living conditions of soil microorganisms and worms, and during decomposition serves as food for them. This, in turn, leads to a decrease in plant diseases and an increase in yield. With dense sowing in cultivated soils, it suppresses the development of weeds.
Forage culture. In terms of nutritional value of green mass, spring vetch is superior to peas and lupins, it is equated to clover. The palatability and digestibility of hay and greens by all kinds of animals is very good. It contains a lot of protein, fats and ash elements, especially in leaves, therefore, when collecting green mass, it is carefully rolled over to prevent loss of leaves. Start using from the beginning mass flowering when the nutrient concentration is highest. But due to the fact that the maximum increase in green mass falls on the flowering period, it is advisable to mow in the green bean phase.
honey culture.
Growing. spring vetch on green manure grown as an intermediate crop. Sow with early spring(then the harvest is the highest) until August 5th. Sometimes planted as a cover crop for annuals and perennial herbs: Herbs grow slowly at first and the vetch protects them from overgrowing with weeds. If the grasses begin to grow intensively, vetch is mowed over them and used as mulch in free areas or composted with peat, manure, etc. Winter vetch is sown at the end of summer, August 15-30, in the steppe regions - until September 15.
For home gardening, as a green manure, it is of interest as a precursor to seedlings of tomatoes, peppers, etc. Sown in August, in the spring it grows from the buds in the lower part of the stems and builds up a green mass, which is cut off after planting the seedlings. Yields of winter vetch are somewhat lower than those of spring vetch. Since vetch has curly stems, it is usually sown in a mixture with plants that serve as their support: oats, barley, wheat, broad beans, lupins, corn and sunflowers for silage. Winter vetch - with winter rye, perennial ryegrass, winter rapeseed, winter rapeseed.
Here is one example of using the wiki. In late summer, compost is brought into the freed bed and shallowly covered. Then the bed is leveled and sown with vetch. It is better to sow a vetch-oat mixture: vetch grows slowly, and oats grow quickly, that is, it serves as a kind of babysitter for the vetch. Oats die for the winter, and the vetch behaves as it should winter crop: sprouts, bushes, protects the soil together with oats in winter, grows in spring and at the time of planting seedlings of heat-loving crops has time to grow before flowering. Shortly before planting, it must be mowed without tilling the soil. Make holes right in the stubble and plant peppers or tomatoes in them, and use the mowed mass as mulch. Now the bed can be left alone until the fruit is harvested (only watered during droughts).
Soils. Requires well-cultivated nutrient soils of medium mechanical composition, well-moistened with a slightly acidic reaction. Winter vetch is less whimsical; it also grows on lighter soils. Acid, marsh soils, salt marshes and dry sands are not suitable.
Humidity. Moisture-loving, especially during budding and flowering. Does not tolerate drought well. Winter is less moisture-loving than spring.
Temperature. Unpretentious. One of the most cold-resistant green manure. Winter hardiness of winter vetch is average. In a mixture with oats, it withstands frosts down to -5 -7 ° С.
Illumination. Long day plant. In conditions short day does not bloom. Winter vetch is more shade-tolerant.
Soil preparation. Soil loosening with a Fokin flat cutter or a cultivator is sufficient and best way processing, increasing soil fertility and preserving the strength of the farmer. To receive better harvest should
use organic fertilizers and preparations of effective soil microorganisms ( : Emochki, Radiance-1, Baikal EM-1, Bokashi).
Sowing. Sow better in rows with a distance of 7-12 cm with cruciferous (in a row) or mixed with cereals (oats, rye or wheat, which are sown a few days after vetch) in spring or in the second half of summer after harvesting early vegetable crops. Depth is 1-5 cm, the norm is 1,500 g per hundred square meters. After the appearance of sunrises, it is better to use organic fertilizers and EM preparations for top dressing.
Blends:
Winter vetch 400-500 g + perennial ryegrass 150 g
Cutting. Vika is sown and cut 1-2 times a season. Cutting 3 weeks before sowing seeds and 2 before planting seedlings in the budding phase with a Fokine flat cutter or a cultivator, after watering with a solution of EM preparations. Treatment with an EM preparation accelerates the fermentation processes and creates favorable microbiological conditions that lead to the enrichment of the soil with nutrients and microelements.
Attention! The processes of decomposition of plant residues, humification take place only in the presence of moisture in the soil. Therefore, green manure without additional irrigation is effective only in the conditions of Polissya and Western Ukraine, in the South - only with irrigation, in the Central regions it requires irrigation during droughts.
Price: 22 UAH/kg temporarily not available
Vika is an annual legume.
This legume in field and fodder crop rotations to obtain grain, hay and green mass. Feeding advantages of vetch-cereal mash are very high.
In terms of protein content, vetch is superior to peas, lentils and beans. It is an excellent fallow and stubble crop, as well as valuable plant green conveyor. The stubble crops of this crop can be successfully used for grazing livestock. It is a good predecessor of spring crops - spring wheat, oats, barley and others.
Vetch is relatively undemanding to soil conditions, but grows best on cohesive soils. Dry sandy saline and marshy soils are unsuitable for it. On drained swamps and newly developed lands, it works well as a preliminary (first) culture.
It is not demanding for heat. Seeds germinate at a temperature of 2-3°C, and seedlings tolerate frosts down to 4-5°C.
It is widely distributed in the non-chernozem zone and the steppe regions of the chernozem zone. The southern boundary of its distribution approximately coincides with the southern zone of clover sowing. The culture is moisture-loving. It makes high demands on moisture, especially during the flowering period, but in the northern regions, with an excess of precipitation in the second half of summer, it delays flowering and lodges, and therefore often does not ripen. Vegetation period of mid-season spring vetch is 110-120 days.
Winter vetch (hairy)
Hairy vetch can be a winter and spring crop. In the areas of its cultivation, hairy vetch is of the greatest production interest during autumn sowing. Winter vetch is a valuable component of winter rye sown to obtain green mass in the early spring period. Such a mixture in terms of nutritional value, especially in terms of protein content, costs significantly more than sowing rye in its pure form.
This winter crop, mixed with rye, is distributed mainly in the forest-steppe and steppe parts, the central black earth regions.
Autumn crops of winter vetch are especially successful under irrigation conditions. It matures early, around the end May - early June, and is successfully used as a fallow culture. Potatoes can be planted after harvest. In terms of fodder qualities, winter vetch exceeds spring and other leguminous grasses. It is less demanding on soil conditions compared to spring and can give good harvests even on sandy soils. The disadvantage is poor winter hardiness, strong
Annual honey plant - spring vetch.
Sowing peas or Vetch sowing (spring) - annual plant, up to 100 cm high. more often - 20 - 80. Ascending and creeping, erect, sometimes branched stems. Leaves are oblong, (2)4-8(9)-paired, obovate, oblong, with branched tendrils. There are single flowers, axillary and almost sessile. Corolla with a sail different color, more often purple, pink or lilac, the wings are purple, less often the flower is white. Sail with a bend passing into a nail. The seeds are spherical in shape, slightly compressed from the sides, sometimes flat with different colors. The plant is an optional self-pollinator.
This is herbaceous plant familiar to many lovers of color herbs. In addition to flower lovers, vetch also attracts the attention of bees that flock to the honey plant in search of sweet nectar.
Honey plant high, bees love nectar from extrafloral nectaries of the plant. Honey has excellent taste qualities. In good weather, you can get about 20 kg from a vetch. honey from 1 ha. More than once it was necessary to observe how bees fly over the vetch crops, they do not flutter over the plant, but sit on the flower and collect sweet nectar for a long time. The fact that the bees linger on one plant gives the impression that the bees do not often visit the vetch crops. But, as we see, this is not so.
In addition to their honey content, wiki crops also give nutrients, mainly nitrogen, for the soil and green mass for farm animals. Therefore, the plant is often planted on large territories and use 100% all its useful properties.