Sowing vetch is a fodder crop from the legume family. It is also called sow peas, horse peas, vetch, fodder peas, wild peas, konyakovka, chaffinch, passerine peas, goose, crane peas, giravlitsa, mouse peas, peas.
This rather remarkable plant can be found in fields, meadows, along the edges of forests. As a weed, vetch is found in wheat crops, less often along roads, in littered areas, as well as in orchards and vineyards. Its modest lilac flowers are often found in city parks and squares.
This culture is widespread throughout the European part of Russia and Western Siberia, in Kamchatka, as well as in central Asia and the Caucasus, from the lowlands to the middle belt of the mountains.
Botanical portrait
Vetch sowing (Vicia sativa) Is an annual herb. It has a rather long, branched root with growths of nodule bacteria. Stems are hairy, furrowed, creeping, almost tetrahedral. The stem can reach 1 m in height.
The leaves are oblong with antennae, semiparous, the lower ones are obovate, the upper ones are linear-oblong. In their axils there are two small flowers, reaching 2 cm in length. The flowers are lilac or pinkish in color. The calyx is five-toothed at the base, tubular, hairy; corolla of a moth type, five-lobed with a purple, lilac or pink sail, purple wings and a white boat, less often a white flower. A sail with a large and wide limb, sharply turning into a narrow marigold. The column is filiform. Ten stamens fused with filaments form one small bundle.
The fruit is a small, broadly linear, on a short stalk, swollen pod of light yellow color, less often gray or blackish, reaches a length of 6 cm, shortly pubescent or glabrous, with a short, curved nose. Each bean contains 9 seeds. Seeds are about 3 mm in diameter, dark, spherical, slightly flattened. The mass of 1000 seeds is from 10 to 20 g. The ability to germinate is maintained for 4 years.
The growing season varies from 70 to 120 days. The plant blooms in mid-summer, late June or early July. Flowering lasts from 10 to 30 days. Seed ripening occurs 4 weeks after flowering.
Harvesting takes place at the beginning of August. You can harvest 2 times per summer.
Sowing peas are an excellent honey plant, from one hectare you can get 20 kg of fragrant honey.
The most popular varieties of vetch sowing: Assorted, Barnaulka, Valentina, Hybrid 97, Kshnel, Link, Margarita, Nemchinovskaya 72, Orlovskaya 96, Sputnitsa, Yubileinaya.
Spring vetch has several wild species that are very similar to the crop in all characteristics.
Sowing peas are an unpretentious plant. It is frost-resistant, the seeds begin to germinate at + 2 ... + 3 ° C, and the seedlings can withstand a drop in temperature to -7 ° C, therefore, for forage purposes, this crop is grown up to the Kola Peninsula. The plant is light-loving and undemanding to soils, although it grows worse on heavy waterlogged and acidic soils, it prefers to grow on light and poorly fertile soils in which there is a sufficient amount of calcium. In the flowering phase, it needs good moisture, moisture-loving during the budding period. This culture is almost not affected by diseases and pests. The only exception is aphids, which often attack the planting of the sowing vetch.
Methods for using wiki seeding
Vetch seeds, like peas and lentils, have long been eaten. Vika saved peoples more than once in hungry years, her seeds were used instead of cereals, although the harmful glycoside contained in it imparted bitterness to the flour.
Sowing vetch refers to spring crops.For several centuries, this herb has been grown for animal feed, since it has a high content of plant proteins, it is eaten by almost all farm animals. It is sown on pastures and harvested for hay, from this plant they produce nutritious green mass, silage, make grass and grain flour, and also make crushed grain. In addition, seed peas can be sown several times over the summer. This herb is a high quality pet food with 46 feed units and 123 g of protein per 100 kg of dry grass. The mass of the green part of the grass can reach 70%.
Quite often, spring vetch is sown on fallow fields. This plant loosens the soil and is a good nitrogenous fertilizer, and also noticeably improves the quality of the soil, which is important before planting other crops. For this, the plant is sown and then plowed into the ground. Such a green fertilizer is not inferior to manure in its characteristics and retains its qualities for 5 years.
Planting wiki sowing
Depending on the purpose, the planting dates of the vetch sowing vary.
For animal feed, the plant is sown in early spring along with other grasses, and mowed at the stage of the emergence of beans, when the seed peas have already grown sufficiently. A spring crop inhibits the growth of weeds. Vicu is planted along with other forage grasses to kill the bitter taste of other grasses.
For fertilization, the grass is usually sown at the end of August. And in early spring, it is mowed, before the planting of tomatoes, peppers and cabbage begins.
Vetch seeds are sown to a depth of 2 cm, they maintain a distance of at least 7 cm between rows, or they are sown, randomly scattering them over the entire area of the intended planting. The seeding rate per one hundred square meters corresponds to two kilograms of seeds.
By their nature, creeping legumes are adapted to grow with a variety of supporting crops. Vetch is usually cultivated in a mixture with oats, sometimes with barley, rarely - with wheat; for silage - with oats and sunflower, with corn, rye, annual ryegrass; for seeds - with oats, barley.
Medicinal properties of vetch plant
Sowing peas are also used in folk medicine. For the treatment of various ailments and ailments, traditional herbalists use all parts of the plant. Vetch sowing has a diuretic and laxative, hemostatic and healing properties. It is used as a sedative, neuropathic and anticonvulsant.
Compresses with this herb help the early ripening of abscesses and quick cleansing of ulcers and wounds. A decoction of vetch roots was used to treat Botkin's disease.
