Can someone tell about vetch?

[CharlieTR]

My friend wants me to plant vetch on 40+ acres.
I have read a little about it on the internet, but all it says is that is a good green manure.

Is it easy to get rid of to plant coastal hay in a year or two?

Thanks

 

[randy41]

i have planted hairy vetch (theres different kinds of vetch)and it reseeds itself readily. It is also very viney. But if you hit it at the right time and don't try to plow it under but just kill it by mowing before it goes to seed and plant into it it should work. It adds a lot of nitrogen to the soil.

 

[jinman]

i have planted hairy vetch (theres different kinds of vetch)and it reseeds itself readily. It is also very viney. But if you hit it at the right time and don't try to plow it under but just kill it by mowing before it goes to seed and plant into it it should work. It adds a lot of nitrogen to the soil.

I mentioned growing hairy vetch and lespedeza to a friend and he thought I was talking about a couple of morning drive-time disc jockeys:

Harry Vetch and Les Pedeza in the morning...

 

[Bird]

I didn't even know, until about the last 8 or 10 years, that there were different kinds of vetch. When I was a kid, Dad used to disk a part of the pasture down in the creek bottom, with the old John Deere L and a horse drawn disk that had been modifed to be pulled with the old tractor. Then he'd sow a mixture of rye and vetch every Fall for winter pasture for the milk cow and my horse. And we'd move all the bee hives from up near the garden down there in that patch for the winter since the vetch made some pretty little flowers for them.