Many legumes have long been favorite plants on the site. Not only do they give a tasty harvest, but they are also known to enrich the soil with nitrogen with the help of special nodule bacteria 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 species widely used as food and feed crops.
Rod Vika (polka dots)
The genus includes about 140 plant species native to South America, Europe and North Africa. Under natural conditions, peas grow in floodplains, in flood meadows and edges, in the steppes. Most of them are perennials, rarely annuals. The stem is most often climbing type, sometimes erect. Leaves are paired. The flowers are solitary of a characteristic appearance: the calyx has a short trumpet and teeth, a flag with a faintly pronounced nail, a boat is blunt, wings withplate.
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 long.
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.
Spreading seed 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 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. The natural species is quite cold-resistant and withstands frosts down to -6 ° C. Vika is a moisture-loving plant, especially during the period of bud formation and flowering, otherwise it is unpretentious andundemanding to environmental conditions.
Use as fertilizer
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, the vetch accumulates up to 30 kg of biomass per 10 m2, which has a high content of nitrogen (160 g), potassium (200 g) and phosphorus (75 g).
Sowing and care
Common peas (vetch) - the plant as a whole is unpretentious, but its cultivation has some peculiarities. 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 absent altogether.
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. sowing lightly roll, if it is wet, then this is not necessary. 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.
The use of trellises is recommended to prevent lodgingstems when planted alone. Sometimes the plant is sown together 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 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 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 green manure. Based on the dried material, its composition includes up to 20% vegetable protein, a small amount of fiber and dietary fiber. Fresh 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, grass flour, 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, 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 forbeekeeping. Abundant flowering continues 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, the sowing 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.
