Agricultural technology for the cultivation of spring and winter vetch in crop production

Agrotechnics of spring and winter vetch: sowing and harvesting features

In growing technology annual legume grasses, there is much in common. Soil preparation for them requires thorough leveling and rolling of the field. Seed is sown early using wide-row or conventional row methods. Harvesting is carried out by direct combining, and under unfavorable weather conditions, they switch to a two-phase method.

• Sowing rate — 2–2.5 million viable seed per 1 ha
• Sowing depth — 1–3 cm
• Nitrogen accumulation by spring vetch — 30–40 kg/ha and more

Common vetch, or spring vetch (Vicia sativa L.), is valued as an excellent precursor for subsequent crops, especially as part of vetch-oat fallow for winter crops. The plant has a thin trailing stem 80–120 cm long and paripinnate leaves consisting of 4–9 pairs of leaflets with tendrils at the ends. Flowers are usually violet-purple or lilac, less often pink or white. In the wild, it is found in the European part of Russia, the Caucasus, Western Siberia, Central Asia, and the Far East.

The crop is cultivated for grain, green fodder, hay, and silage. For grain harvesting, spring vetch is sown in pure form, similar to peas. 7–9 rounded, slightly flattened seed form in the pod; the thousand-seed weight is 45–65 g. The nutritional value of the spring vetch harvest depends on the processed product.

Most often, spring vetch is grown together with oats. The harvesting time for such a mixture depends on the goals: for hay, the mass is mown at the beginning of pod formation, for silage — when they turn yellow en masse. The mass mown for hay is wilted for 1–2 days in swaths; when the leaves wilt, it is raked into windrows and then collected into stacks. In rainy weather, the mixture is immediately ensiled.

For grass seeding in the Republic of Belarus, adapted cultivars of common vetch are recommended. Mid-season cultivars for universal use include Natali, Charounitsa, and Udacha. The Mila cultivar is perfectly suited for the grain-mowing direction.

Winter vetch, or hairy vetch (Vicia villosa Roth.), in a mixture with winter rye provides the earliest green fodder of high quality. This mixture is less suitable for hay making, as the rye usually becomes coarse by the time the vetch flowers. It is important for agronomists to consider these periods when planning the mowing.

Since winter vetch lags behind rye in development during the first period after emergence, they are sown at different times. Mixed sowing requires strict adherence to timing and sowing rates. The technological scheme for establishment is performed sequentially.

1. Sowing winter vetch using the solid row method 10–15 days before sowing rye. Sowing rate — 80–100 kg/ha, seed planting depth — 3–4 cm.
2. Sowing winter rye on the vetch seedlings across the rows with a sowing rate of 80 kg/ha.
3. Harvesting the mixture for green fodder before the rye begins to head, and for seed — when the vetch pods turn brown.

Grass pea: drought-resistant forage crop

Grass pea (Lathyrus sativus L.) is cultivated as a forage and industrial crop. Its seed, green mass, and hay, rich in protein, are readily consumed by all types of livestock. The seed also serves as a valuable raw material for obtaining vegetable casein, which is necessary in the production of plywood, fabrics, and plastics. Grass pea is a long-day plant resistant to frosts down to -8 °С.

• Growing season — 80–110 days
• Sum of active temperatures — about 1700 °С
• Thousand-seed weight — from 50 to 600 g

Morphologically, grass pea is an annual with a branching, four-sided, lodging stem 1–1.5 m high. The leaves are paripinnate with tendrils; the pods are straight with two ribs on the suture, containing 2–5 angular, wedge-shaped seed. In cultivation, a distinction is made between the European subspecies (with white or lightly colored flowers and yellow-white seed) and the Asian subspecies (with colored flowers and dark seed). The plant is predominantly cross-pollinated.

The crop is characterized by salt tolerance, low soil requirements, and weak susceptibility to diseases and the pea weevil. In terms of drought resistance among legumes, it is second only to chickpeas. For hay and green mass, grass pea is often sown in mixtures with oats, barley, sudangrass, or foxtail millet. When sowing with oats, the proportion is observed: 1.5–2 cwt of grass pea is added for every 1 cwt of oat seed.

Grass pea, like peas and other legumes, leaves a lot of nitrogen in the soil. At the same time, the well-developed root system of the grass pea, extracting calcium and phosphorus from deep soil horizons, enriches the arable layer with them. This feature of grass pea enhances its value as a predecessor for many spring grains and other crops. It is of great importance as a fallow crop and as a forage crop when sown in mixtures for hay.

Grass pea ripens more uniformly than peas and does not shatter as much when left in the field too long. The grass pea harvest is usually carried out using a two-phase (windrow) method. Mowing into windrows begins when 60–80% of the pods are ripe. As the mass dries, the windrows are picked up and threshed with combine harvesters.

Field pea (Pisum arvense L.) is an annual legume and one of the best stubble crops in the Republic of Belarus (see Fig. 26, g, d, zh). Its growing season is 85–100 days, and mowing maturity is reached in 45–55 days. This makes it possible to cultivate it in northern regions where vetch does not ripen. Field pea is not demanding on the soil, provides good yields on podzolic sandy, low-fertility lands, exceeding the yield of spring vetch. Up to 300–350 centners/ha of green mass can be obtained. In terms of forage quality, it is slightly inferior to vetch.

The root system of the field pea is taprooted, penetrating well into the soil.

The stem is thin and climbing. Its length varies from 50 to 120 cm. The stem color is green or anthocyanin.

The leaves consist of 2-3 pairs of leaflets with branched tendrils. The leaflets are oval-ovate, without serrations. The stipules are larger than the leaflets, serrated along the edges, with an anthocyanin spot at the base.

The inflorescence contains two flowers in the leaf axils. The flower color ranges from pale pink to purple.

The fruit is a multi-seeded pod.

The seeds are irregularly rounded, oval, sometimes compressed. The seeds have a light brown, gray-green, or violet-marbled color with stripes, specks, and spots. The mass of 1000 seeds is 80–200 g depending on the size.

Field pea is sown in mixtures with oats, barley, foxtail millet, and sudangrass. It can be sown in fallow for grain. In stubble crops, a mixture with oats is sown at the rate: 50–60 kg/ha of oats and 150–160 kg/ha of field pea. A field pea-sunflower mixture is good for silage. The yield of green mass reaches 275 centners/ha.

Lupine includes about 200 species. Annual and perennial species are cultivated in field crops. Among the annual lupines under production conditions, the most common is the narrow-leaved or blue lupine (Lupinus angustifolius L.) — one of the early-ripening species cultivated in Belarus for feed and as green manure (siderate), which has blue, pink, or white flowers and large white round seeds. In our country, a lupine cultivar is considered forage (alkaloid-free) if the seeds contain no more than 0.03% alkaloids. Such plants, as well as their seeds, do not have a bitter taste; they are readily eaten by livestock and can also be added to other feeds, creating protein-balanced rations. In terms of protein content in seeds (35–42%) and its amino acid composition, lupine is not inferior to soybeans. Narrow-leaved lupine is grown for green mass (yield is 40–53 tons/ha), and its modern alkaloid-free cultivars are used for the production of high-protein grain. In favorable years, the seed yield is 2.5–3.0 tons/ha.

Narrow-leaved lupine is earlier-ripening than yellow lupine and is moving into the northern regions of Belarus. In recent years, thanks to the creation of early-ripening and high-yielding cultivars, its sowing areas have expanded significantly.

Harvesting lupine for seeds begins when 80–90% of the pods turn brown. Seeds harvested by combine are immediately cleaned and dried. Seeds dried to 15% humidity can be stored in a dry room.

Intermediate lupine crops include stubble sowings. After harvesting winter rye, barley, or oats, the field is ploughed, harrowed, and rolled with a roller to compact the soil, and then forage or bitter lupine is sown. In autumn, forage lupine is fed as green fodder or ensiled.

If low-alkaloid lupine cultivars are grown mainly for livestock feed and silage mass, then bitter or alkaloid cultivars are grown in occupied fallow for green manure. The advantage of lupine over other legumes is that its root system penetrates deep into the soil and uses poorly soluble phosphates; nodule bacteria capable of fixing nitrogen from the air develop on the roots; it can grow on poor soils, for the improvement of which it is cultivated.

The green mass of lupin contains about 0.5% nitrogen and 20% organic matter. The average yield of lupin green mass is about 300—400 c/ha. Consequently, with the green mass alone, up to 150—200 kg of nitrogen and 6—8 tons of organic matter are applied per hectare, which corresponds to 30 tons of manure. Therefore, lupin ploughed under for green fertilizer is a good precursor crop. The residual effect of lupin lasts in the soil for 5—8 years.

In Belarus, the regionalized forage cultivars of lupin are Pershatsvet, Mitan, Mirtan, Vladlen, Svitanak, and Khvalko.

Serradella (Ornythopus sativus Broth.) is an annual legume crop. It is grown for green fodder, hay, and seed. In terms of nutritional quality, serradella hay is not inferior to clover hay. It is sometimes called the "clover of sandy soils".

Serradella is a valuable pasture and forage crop that tolerates trampling well, regrows quickly after grazing, and is excellently consumed by livestock. Due to its high shade tolerance and slow development at the beginning of the growing season, it is most often grown as an undersown crop with winter or spring cereals. Serradella can also be sown in pure stands in forage crop rotation or on occupied fallow. The green mass accumulates by late autumn, providing farms with late top dressing, raw material for silage, or high-quality green fertilizer.

• Seed germination temperature — 1–2 °C
• Frost tolerance for seedlings — down to −8...−9 °C
• Stand height — 50–70 cm
• Sowing rate (pure stand) — 45 kg/ha
• Sowing rate (undersown) — 45–60 kg/ha
• Oat additive for support — 20 kg/ha

The plant forms a thin stem, odd-pinnate leaves with 6–10 pairs of lanceolate leaflets, and small pink flowers collected in sparse racemes of 4–8 each. Serradella is relatively moisture-loving and produces a higher yield in low-lying areas of the field. Flowering begins 40–45 days after sowing (from the second half of June) and continues until autumn. During this period, the crop serves as an excellent honey plant, which is eagerly visited by bees. In Belarus, the Stolbtsovskaya Mestnaya and Skidelskaya Mestnaya cultivars are regionalized.

For proper seed placement, use proven undersowing methods:

• Undersowing under winter rye: carried out in early spring with a disc drill across the rows.
• Undersowing in spring cereals: performed immediately after their sowing, across the rows.
• Sowing as a pure crop: carried out in early spring by drilling.

When undersowing under spring cereals, follow this sequence of operations:

1. Sow the cereal cover crop at a depth of 6–8 cm.
2. Roll the soil to compact and level the top layer.
3. Undersow the serradella across the rows at a depth of 2–3 cm.

When growing serradella without a cover crop for hay or green fodder, its thin stems lodge heavily. To avoid this, oats are added to the seeds. The stand must be mown no lower than 5 cm from the soil level — at a lower cut, the aftermath grows back very poorly. Drying for hay is carried out strictly in windrows, which allows protecting delicate leaves from overdrying and shattering.

Annual grasses: the potential of sudangrass

The group of annual grasses cultivated in the Republic of Belarus includes sudangrass, foxtail millet, and ryegrass. Among them, sudangrass (Sorghum sudanense Stapf, Andropogon sudanensis Piper., Sorghum exigiram Roshev.) stands out as a highly productive forage crop. It is used for hay, silage, green fodder, and grazing. In terms of nutritional value, the green mass and hay of sudangrass are superior to many other grasses.

• Hay yield (2 cuts) — 70–80 c/ha (up to 100 and more)
• Hay yield in drought — not less than 25–30 c/ha
• Seed yield — 5–25 c/ha
• Root system depth — up to 2.5 m
• Tillering node depth — 0.8–1.2 cm
• Regrowth after cutting (up to 60 cm) — 30–35 days

Under favorable conditions, sudangrass is capable of producing 3–4 cuts per season due to its high regrowth rate. It is a thermophilic, drought-resistant, and shade-tolerant plant, introduced into culture in the region in the 1920s. Sudangrass forms the highest yields on fertile soils, floodplain lands, and drained peatlands.

The plant's tillering node is located close to the soil surface and has a tremendous shoot-forming capacity: one plant can form up to 25 shoots. The stems are well-leafed, reaching 3 m in height. The leaves are linear, up to 70 cm long, and account for 35 to 55% of the total cutting mass.