Many legumes have long been the favorite plants on the site. They not only give a tasty crop, but also, as you know, enrich the soil with nitrogen using special nodule bacteria on the roots. However, few people know their botanical name. They belong to the large flowering family - Vika. A plant (photos, seeds we will consider 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 feed crops.
Genus Vic (peas)
The genus includes about 140 species of plants, whose homeland is South America, Europe and North Africa. Under natural conditions, peas grows in floodplains, in flood meadows and forest edges, in the steppes. The bulk - perennials, less often annuals. The stem is most often of the climbing type, sometimes erect. The leaves are paramorous. Single flowers of a characteristic type: the calyx has a short tube and prongs, a flag with an indistinct nail, a dull boat, wings with a plate.
Botanical description: sowing vetch
A plant whose description is perhaps familiar to many. It is also called "pea sowing." This is an annual or biennial plant with a height of 20 to 80 cm. The stem can be erect or ascending, faceted, lowered or bare, with or without branching. The characteristic paranoid leaves at the end have antennae with which the peas clings to the support. The flowers are almost sessile, paired or single. Fruit - a bean, cylindrical or slightly flattened, up to 6 cm in length.
However, one should not confuse the plant with a very similar, but still different species - sowing peas. This is the most common and famous representative of the mentioned genus. Many varietal forms have been developed that differ in taste and seed size, ripening time. All of them are combined in three groups: peeling, sugar and cereal peas.
Sowing peas
Vika is a plant whose name in Latin sounds like Vicia sativa. It is widespread in the European part of Russia, Western Siberia, the mountain 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 the road, in garbage places, deposits. Development and growth proceeds best in a “company” with other herbs supporting its creeping stalk. The natural look is quite cold-resistant and can withstand frosts down to -6 ° . Vika is a moisture-loving plant, especially during the formation of buds and flowering, otherwise unpretentious and undemanding to environmental conditions.
Use as fertilizer
Vika sowing is a wonderful siderat known to mankind since ancient times. The main method of its use in this format is clean sowing and subsequent digging into the soil of the grown green mass. The level of action of such a fertilizer is compared with manure, the positive effect lasts for 4-5 years. In about three months, the vetch sowing accumulates up to 30 kg of biomass per 10 m 2 , in which there is a high content of nitrogen (160 g), potassium (200 g) and phosphorus (75 g).
Sowing and care
Peas (vetch) - the plant is generally unpretentious, but its cultivation has some features. Peas can vegetate in both light and heavy soils, but they prefer neutral pH. If the soil is acidic, then inhibition of nodule bacteria on the roots is observed, they will be small and poorly fixing atmospheric nitrogen or may be absent altogether.
Sowing is carried out in rows, the width between them should be 15-20 cm, between the seeds - 5 cm. The depth of seeding depends on the soil structure: on the lungs - 7 cm, on heavy - 5 cm. In dry weather, it is recommended that the soil be slightly rolled after sowing, if it is wet, then this is not necessary. Care for green manure is extremely simple and consists in timely weeding and loosening of the crust after rain and watering. Vika is a plant of long daylight hours, hygrophilous, but does not tolerate stagnation of water.
The use of trellis is recommended to prevent lodging of the stems during a single landing. Sometimes a plant is sown with corn, sunflower, in which case the latter play the role of a support.
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 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 is a plant whose beneficial properties are not limited to use as siderate. Its composition, based on the dried material, includes up to 20% of vegetable protein, a small amount of fiber and dietary fiber. Fresh leaves contain lysine, beta-carotene, a little fat and water. All these characteristics allow the plant to be used as a complete animal feed. It uses green mass, hay, haylage, grass meal, silage, crushed grains and grain flour. For these purposes, peas are cultivated, as a rule, with oats or barley, less often with wheat; for silage, sunflower, corn, rye are added.
In addition, vetch is a plant (photo presented in the article), which is an excellent honey plant. This fact makes it especially valuable for beekeeping. Abundant flowering lasts for a month from about the beginning to mid-June. The honey production rate is highest for shaggy (winter) vetch - 140-200 kg per hectare of planting, in the sowing season 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. So, Vika sowing, 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 them away. The plant is an excellent neighbor for crops that love nitrogen: tomatoes, sweet peppers, lettuce, eggplant, carrots. It goes well with fruit trees and shrubs.