A Detailed Guide to Vetch Seed Selection Techniques and Seedling Raising Methods

Vetch is an annual or overwintering trailing herb of the legume genus Vicia (wild pea), an important green manure and forage crop with fairly wide adaptability. In the Jiangsu region it mainly refers to Vicia villosa and Vicia cracca. As a green manure, planting vetch helps improve soil structure and helps reduce pollution of fruit trees, raising the green quality of fruit trees or crops. So how should vetch seeds be selected? What are the seedling raising methods? Let's take a look together below.

1. How should vetch seeds be selected?

Vetch seeds are fairly hard and oval in shape; newly harvested vetch seeds in particular have a higher hard-seed rate, so hard-seed treatment should be carried out before sowing. Therefore, when growing vetch, be sure not to choose newly harvested vetch seeds; choose vetch seeds that have already been treated.

2. What are the seedling raising methods for vetch?

1. Sowing time

Vetch is sown from the end of July to mid-to-late August. Autumn sowing is the main method, though spring sowing is also possible in North China and Northwest China.

2. Sowing and seedling raising

The life of vetch passes through several stages: emergence, branching, budding, flowering, pod setting and maturity. The suitable germination temperature is around 20°C. After emergence, when there are 4 to 5 compound leaves, branching nodes form on the stem, and each branching node produces several branches. Root nodules form 10 to 15 days after vetch emergence. The peak branching period is generally from green-up to budding. Autumn-sown vetch greens up when the early spring temperature reaches 2°C to 3°C, and buds when the temperature reaches around 15°C; the budding period is generally from mid-April to early May. The suitable temperature for flowering is 15°C to 20°C, and flowering proceeds from bottom to top. The pod-setting rate of vetch is not high, with the number of pods generally accounting for only about 5% to 15% of the number of flowers.

3. Field management

Generally, about 15-20 kg each of superphosphate and plant ash are mixed together and applied as a base fertilizer. Where seedling growth is poor, 4-5 kg of urea plus 4-5 loads of pig manure water can be applied by splashing. Because vetch likes moisture and fears waterlogging, attention should be paid to drainage and irrigation in the furrows, and timely harvesting or plowing under.

The above is an introduction to vetch. True vetch has a flowering and fruiting period in May; the whole plant is an excellent green manure and feed, and can also be used medicinally; it is also a major honey-source plant. Vetch needs only a small amount of seed and fertilizer, can be grown on site and applied on site, has an extremely high fresh grass yield, is easy to cultivate, and can be planted in both farmland and wasteland; its green manure quality is high and its fertilizer effect is good.

For wonderful pictures and text and popular comments about vetch, you may be interested in the content recommended below by Nongxun Network; you are welcome to read it.

Agricultural products you may be interested in: High-quality vetch seeds supplied nationwide