Crown Vetch - Chemung

Once established, crown vetch provides an excellent, almost maintenance-free, cover for soil stabilization and slope beautification. It grows approximately two feet tall and blooms from June through September, producing pink to pinkish-purple flowers. Crown vetch is strongly rhizomatous (underground root stalks) and grows well on clay textured and shallow soils. It is highly recommended for low maintenance areas such as slopes around commercial or public buildings, highway and/or driveway slopes, lawn areas too steep for safe mowing and slopes associated with many recreational facilities or parks. It has been grown extensively in the northern two-thirds of the United States for temporary ground cover, erosion control, and as a green fertilizer crop. It is also used as a bank stabilizer along roads and waterways. This plant prefers open, sunny areas. It occurs along roadsides and other rights-of-way, in open fields and on gravel bars along streams.

Crown vetch is a perennial legume that reproduces by seeds and spreads vegetatively. It can form large clumps from creeping stems. The stems can be up to 6 feet long. Crown vetch has rhizomes up to 10 feet long which allow the plant to spread rapidly. The vegetative growth habit can rapidly cover and shade out native vegetation. A single plant may fully cover 70 to 100 square feet within a four year period. The flowers are pinkish and are clustered in umbels on long stalks. The flowers develop into narrow, flattened pods. Even though it can be slow to establish, once it gets is roots down in to the soil and starts spreading rhizomes, it can spread very rapidly.

For best establishment of crown vetch, lime and fertilizer should be worked into the top four to six inches of soil. If you do this, be sure to to wait a while after tilling so you can spray out and kill dormant weed seed that comes to the surface due to tilling. It may take 4 - 6 weeks to completely kill off weeds after tilling. Do not prepare a fine, fluffy seedbed. Since many sloping areas will not likely be mowed, leave the seedbed as rough and non-uniform as possible. The presence of rocks, large clods or even stumps will help stabilize the soil and improve the microenvironment for better crown vetch establishment. However, it is important to loosen the soil in order to get good soil-seed contact. On steep slopes where the incorporation of lime and fertilizer is unfeasible, shallow furrows or grooves (about 2 inches deep and 2 feet apart) should be made laterally along the slope. This rough seedbed and/or furrows will help hold additional moisture and fertilizer to give quicker establishment.

Crown vetch may be desired on slopes where some existing vegetation is already established. Because of the possibility of severe erosion when the soil is disturbed, it is usually unfeasible to kill existing vegetation and completely re-establish. If vegetation is fairly thick, you will want to mow it down or weed whack it down and the rake and remove the debri so you can obtain good seed to soil contact. If the existing vegetation is thin, crown vetch can often be established successfully with minimum soil preparation by seeding in late February or early March while the soil is honeycombed from freezing and thawing. It is helpful if additional soil scarification can be obtained by using a rake, hoe or open-disk. Good soil-seed contact is necessary for good germination.

20 lbs per acre or 1 lb per 1,000 square feet