Re: Field peas - summer planting
So what is the difference between field peas and Austrian Winter Peas??
Dang little!
Field Pea (Pisum sativum L.), a native of Southwest Asia, was among the first crops cultivated by man. Wild field pea can still be found in Afghanistan, Iran and Ethiopia
Austrian Winter Pea (Pisum sativum spp arvense) is a fall-seeded pea introduced from Austria to the Pacific Northwest in the 1930s.
The names are often inter-changed but it would suffice to say that field peas have been bred for dry pea production while AWP are used primarily for forage grazing or hay.
In that respect perhaps it's like comparing soybeans bred for grain production and forage soys bred for grazing attributes.
In either event I planted my
FIELD PEAS this past week to see how a late summer planting of oats and peas will fare.
The object of field peas of course is for deer to take advantage of the dried peas later in the fall. Peas are a cool weather crop so we want them to flower during cool fall weather.
I tilled down a spring oat/pea plot and replanted at 100#'s of field peas per acre. I tilled down mature oats and added a sprinklng of new oat seed although I'm sure it wasn't needed.
The spring peas were 3 months along and looked like this in late July...
Some had dried down
Some were still flowering
The oats were fully mature
by early August the patch started to get weedy and the hot temps started to wilt the peas
This is basically what I expected so I had saved a couple bags of Nannyslayers field peas to plant this summer.
I didn't want to plant the oats to early so I waited till mid August and tilled the whole mess under...
The ground was dry and hard as a rock and didn't till worth a hoot and I was wishing I would haved disced it first.
The straw and weeds didn't want to mix well in the dry hard soil
but eventually I got is stirred up enough to plant
Even with the heavy mulch on top the seed easily fell thru the straw to the soil below. I scraped the straw back to reveal the seed below...
I used my bag seeder to broadcast the seed (a small coffee can works well to move seed "bag to bag")
I also spread a few more oats and then ran the cultipacker over it. I took this close up for those that haven't used a cultipacker, showing how the ridge of the packer wheels support the weight and allows it to firm the soil around the seed rather then pack it soild.
I added about 8-10#'s of nannyslayers red clover seed
it's pre-inoculated
but always check the exp. date
and rolled it again...note the "ridges" rather then flat soil surface
It was a dusty job...
Rained a good 1/2" and more since planting so we'll see how the fall planting turns out.
Will it flower and produce peas before cold weather?
Will deer treat it differently now that the soybeans are gone and forage on the plant itself?
Will mid August oats get to mature?
Average first frost in my area is Oct 5th but some years it's Thanksgiving before it freezes, so who knows what Mother Nature has in store?
Time will tell....
