Ingredient
Hairy vetch
Vicia villosa
Also known as: Vicia villosa, winter vetch
Vining winter-annual leguminous cover crop — the heaviest N-fixer in the temperate-cover-crop pantry, delivering 100–200 lb N/acre when terminated at full bloom. Cold-hardier than crimson clover (reliable to Zone 4 with snow cover), produces dense biomass, and the residue mulch is excellent for no-till tomato and cucurbit crops planted into the rolled mat. The right ingredient when N is the limiting variable and the following crop is a heavy feeder. Almost always seeded in a biculture with cereal rye — the rye provides physical structure that the vining vetch climbs.
Inputs / outputs
- Seeding: 25–40 lb/acre solo, 15–25 lb/acre with rye; late August through early October in temperate zones
- Cold tolerance: reliably winter-hardy to Zone 4 with snow cover; Zone 3 marginal
- Bloom: early to mid-June (later than clover)
- N fixed: 100–200 lb/acre at [[full-bloom|full bloom]] (record at SARE trials >250 lb)
- Termination: roller-crimper at 50%+ bloom (the [[no-till-farming|no-till]] standard) or mow + tillage
Solves / unlocks
- Heaviest N delivery in the winter-legume pantry
- [[no-till-farming|No-till]] mulch for tomato, squash, melon, pepper plantings (rolled rye-vetch mat blocks weeds)
- Late-spring pollinator resource (bumblebees especially)
- Erosion control on overwintered fields
- Soil-organic-matter increase from substantial biomass
Constraints
- Late maturity can delay following spring crop — vetch terminates 3–4 weeks later than clover; not for early-spring vegetable rotations.
- Reseeding risk — terminate before seed set or vetch becomes a multi-year weed.
- Hard-seed dormancy — some seed germinates the following year regardless of termination timing.
- Allelopathy — vetch residue mildly inhibits direct-seeded small crops ([[lettuce|lettuce]], carrot); transplants are unaffected.
Source
- USDA Plant Guide: https://plants.usda.gov/plant-profile/VIVI
- [[rodale-institute|Rodale Institute]] roller-crimper research: https://rodaleinstitute.org/
See also
Auto-generated from this entry’s typed relations: frontmatter, grouped by relation type so the editorial signal isn’t flattened.
- Parallels: [[crimson-clover]]
- Member of: [[ingredient]]
- Combines with: [[cereal-rye]] · [[rhizobia-inoculant]]
What links here, and how
Inbound connections from across the wiki, grouped by lens and by relationship. These appear automatically — every entity page declares what it links to, and that data populates here on the targets.
Scientific
combines with
- Cereal rye the canonical no-till biculture: rye provides structure for vetch climbing; rolled mat mulches the next crop
- Rhizobia inoculant Rhizobium leguminosarum biovar viciae — vetch/pea/lentil group
parallels
- Crimson clover both are leguminous winter covers; vetch fixes more N but matures later and is harder to terminate
contains
- Ecosystem toolkit cover crop / heaviest N-fixer in the temperate winter cover-crop set
combines
- Recipe: vegetable-rotation cover-crop cocktail the legume component (option A) — heavy N fixer, no-till mulch
5 inbound links · 4 outbound