Peas are the most popular of all leguminous crops cultivated in Russia. The fruits of this plant are valued primarily for excellent taste and a high content of easily digestible vegetable protein. The advantage of this crop, among other things, is its relative unpretentiousness in care and high productivity. However, you can get a lot of green mass and pods, of course, only if all pea cultivation technologies are strictly observed.
Areas of use
Peas, along with corn, are a valuable forage crop. This plant is often used, for example, for the preparation of silage and silage. Vegetable protein fruits and peas may contain up to 27%. Therefore, when fed to them, animals gain weight very quickly. When keeping pigs, for example, some expensive concentrates are often replaced with bean hay and peas.
Also, this culture, of course, is widely used in the food industry. Pea flour is sometimes added to wheat when baking baked goods. Dry peas, from which cereals and soups are prepared, are very popular among the population. The green fruits of this plant are widely used for canning.
Biological features
Pea cultivation technologies were developed, of course, taking into account primarily its biological characteristics. This plant is grown in our country in many regions. One of its features is resistance to low temperatures at the beginning of the growing season. Pea seeds germinate already at a temperature of 1-2 ° C. Moreover, the sprouts of this culture are able to withstand cooling to -4-6 ° C.
A feature of peas, among other things, is that during germination it does not carry cotyledons to the surface. Therefore, it can be planted in the soil quite deeply. Accordingly, pea uses the spring moisture to the full.
The disadvantages of this culture in terms of cultivation are considered mainly only the demands on temperature and humidity conditions during budding and fruit formation. Also a minus of peas is the tendency to lodging at the end of the growing season. At present, the mustachioed varieties of this crop are often planted on the fields, after ripening the fruits, they form a woven, fairly stable mass. Harvesting such peas is not too complicated. However, in terms of yield, such varieties of the ordinary, unfortunately, are slightly inferior.
The technology of cultivating peas for grain and green mass: precursors and soils
It is believed that it is best to plant peas after winter crops, as well as row crops - corn, potatoes, sugar beets. Good results are also given by growing this plant after spring cereals. It is not recommended to place peas mainly only after legumes of other varieties. In the same field, it is advisable to grow this culture with a frequency of not more than 1 time in 5 years. It is highly discouraged to plant this variety of legumes also after sunflower, which, as you know, drains the earth very much.
Soil peas, like almost any other agricultural crop, loves nutritious and loose. It just grows great, for example, on chernozems. On sod-podzolic lands this crop is allowed to be planted only after their improvement with mineral fertilizers.
What top dressing can be used
During the growing season, peas during development consume 1 ton of seeds:
nitrogen - 45-50 kg;
phosphorus - 16-20 kg;
potassium - 20-30 kg;
calcium - 25-30 kg;
magnesium - 8-13 kg.
According to technology, the cultivation of field peas should be carried out taking into account all these indicators. Specific fertilizers are chosen for this crop, of course, including depending on the chemical composition of the soil on the site.
One of the features of peas is that it is able to get quite a lot of nitrogen by fixing it from the air. This is, of course, attributed to the undoubted advantages of this plant. Nitrogen fertilizers for peas in the process of growing them are usually used less than for many other crops.
Sowing seeds
The technology for the cultivation of peas in the fields, of course, must be followed exactly. But it is equally important to choose and prepare the seeds of this crop before planting. Otherwise, peas will rise unevenly and unanimously on the field. It is believed that seeds of this culture with a purity of at least 99% and a germination rate of 95% are suitable for sowing. The material of large and medium fractions for planting is supposed to be used separately when sowing.
According to the rules provided by the cultivation technology, sowing peas, since it is a frost-resistant crop, are usually sown early. Begin planting this plant immediately after maturation of the soil. Before sowing, peas are pickled with molybdenum or boron preparations. The seeding rate for this crop depends on the variety. Also in this regard, take into account the mechanical features of the soil. On average, 0.8-1.4 million seeds of this crop are usually sown on 1 ha of areas.
A lot of moisture is required for the swelling and germination of peas. Therefore, close up its seeds to a sufficiently large depth.
Care
After sowing in the fields with peas, a procedure such as rolling the soil with ring-spur rollers is usually performed. This improves the contact of seeds with the ground. One of the features of peas is, among other things, that they suffer very much from weeds in the development process. Therefore, after 4-5 days after sowing, such an operation as pre-emergence harrowing is also carried out. This allows you to destroy up to 80% of weeds on the field.
In the process of development, this culture, among other things, may be damaged by pea aphids. According to the technology of cultivating peas, this pest is supposed to be controlled with the help of special preparations. It can be, for example, means "Phosphomide". Also, when peas bloom, it is often treated with "Fufanon." This remedy helps a lot from moths and moths.
Harvesting
Biological features and pea cultivation technology are, of course, interconnected. As already mentioned, this culture, among other things, belongs to the group prone to lodging. In addition, the fruits of this plant often ripen unevenly. Therefore, peas must be harvested in the fields using a separate method. In the browning phase, up to 70-78% of the pods of the plant are cut across the bed.
To minimize losses, they try to harvest all the peas on the field for a maximum of 3-4 days. The selection of dried rolls is carried out at the moment when the moisture content of the seeds reaches 16-19%. This usually occurs 2–3 days after cutting the plants. On green peas, this crop is harvested in the phase of wax ripeness of the fruit.
Growing in combination with oats
Peas are often cultivated in this way on the green mass. The fact is that pea-oat mix is a very valuable natural fertilizer. Planted it in the fields mainly in order to saturate the soil with nitrogen. Both peas and oats are able to receive this trace element from the air.
The technology of cultivating pea-oat mix in agricultural enterprises is simple. In fact, it is no different from the method of growing peas alone. The only thing is that the plants in this case are not removed from the field, but are embedded in the ground. This operation is performed several times a season to a depth of 10-12 cm.