Hairy Vetch Seeds - Bulk Legume & Cover Crop Seed For Planting

Hairy Vetch Seeds

Specifications:

Season: Annual

Height: 24 - 36 inches

Environment: Full sun to partial shade

USDA Zones: 3 - 9

Hairy Vetch Seed
Hairy Vetch Plants
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Unwanted Plant Suppression
Achieve superior unwanted plant suppression with hairy vetch cover crop seeds. This annual legume, part of a diverse cover crop seed mix, creates a dense ground cover, minimizing the growth of unwanted plants. Ideal for use with garden seeds or pasture grass seed, its cold tolerance ensures a strong, persistent cover crop throughout winter.
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Erosion Control
Protect your soil from erosion with hairy vetch seed. Its extensive root system helps stabilize the soil, preventing erosion even in challenging conditions. Suitable for various soil types including frozen soils, this cover crop integrates well with triticale seed, organic spring mix, and clover seeds, providing reliable erosion control and maintaining soil health.
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Excellent Ground Cover
Hairy vetch seeds are planted as a cover crop, green manure, pasture, silage, and hay. It is capable of accumulating large amounts of dry matter and nitrogen. When planted alone as a winter cover crop in annual vegetable rotations, it can provide substantial amounts of nitrogen to a following crop.
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Biomass Production
Boost your land's biomass with hairy vetch cover crop seeds. This resilient legume, WinterKing hairy vetch, has better winter hardiness equates to more biomass. More biomass provides increased forage for livestock, more biomass for cover croppers. Its nitrogen-fixing properties enrich the soil, making it perfect for green manure and organic vegetable seeds cultivation.
Hairy Vetch Cover Crop
The Winter Warrior of Cover Crops
Hairy vetch cover crop seeds are well-established in fall, tolerate frozen soils, remain dormant until spring, and thrive in acid soil. Ideal for a cover crop seed mix, these seeds enhance biomass, soil fertility, and nitrogen fixation. Perfect for integrating with garden seeds, chicken forage seed mix, and organic spring mix.
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Superior Hardiness, Maximum Biomass, Ultimate Forage
With superior hardiness, these cover crop seeds thrive when well-established in fall, tolerating frozen soils until spring. They produce maximum biomass, providing abundant forage and enriching soil fertility. For livestock producers, WinterKing’s late maturity means more vegetative high value feed longer into the spring season.
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Robust Growth from the Ground Up
For robust growth, plant cover crop seeds 5-7 weeks before the first frost. Use a seeding rate of 15-20 lbs/acre when drilled or 25-50 lbs/acre when broadcast. Ideal seeding depth is 1/2" - 1 1/2". Hairy vetch cover crop seeds offer superior winter hardiness, maximum biomass, and ultimate forage. Perfect for cover crop seed mixes, organic spring mix, garden seeds, and chicken forage seed mix.

WinterKing hairy vetch has better winter hardiness equates to more biomass. More biomass provides increased forage for livestock, more biomass for cover croppers, and increased weed suppression for all. Those desiring high nitrogen-fixing legumes for green manure, forage grazing, wildlife and pollinator attractants should find WinterKing an improved option over other legumes that lack cold tolerance.

As an annual legume, hairy vetch may need to be terminated either mechanically or chemically when followed by a row crop. Some producers may find the late maturity of WinterKing reduces the potential for undesired seed propagation found in earlier maturing cover crop varieties. For livestock producers, WinterKing’s late maturity means more vegetative high value feed longer into the spring season.

WinterKing has shown potential to produce 150-200#N/acre, especially when allowed to reach maturity later in the season. This is beneficial for green manure as well as providing an extended high-protein source for grazing livestock throughout the full spring season.

Hairy vetch tolerates cold well and is more winter-hardy than common vetch. If well-established in fall, it tolerates frozen soils, remaining dormant until spring. Warm spring temperatures bring rapid growth.

Hairy vetch seeds can be planted in soils with pH ranging from 4.9 to 8.2, but does best when pH is from 6.0 to 7.0. It can thrive in acid soils where clover and alfalfa do not grow well.

Hairy vetch does best on sandy or sandy loam soils but grows on most soil types if drainage is good. It tolerates some temporary flooding. Can withstand being flooded for long periods of time; however, stand quality and growth generally decline if there are long periods of flooding or saturated soils. It is somewhat shade-tolerant and more drought-resistant than the other vetches.


Inoculated Seed - We now offer hairy vetch seed which has been coated with an inoculant for better establishment. Nitrogen fixation is a one of the key values found in legumes and can only occur with the proper inoculation. Although many strains or Rhizobium may be present in the soil, all are not equally beneficial. With Nitro-Coat® each seed is inoculated with the correct Rhizobium strains and coated through a proven process that ensures a very high level of successful inoculation. A key to any successful establishment and early seed development is moisture. Nitro-Coat® is naturally water absorbent and helps attract soil moisture to the seed, getting your stand established quickly. This coating process which Outsidepride utilizes, assures that only the top-performing and crop-specific rhizobia will be applied to ensure your clovers reach maximum nodulation, stand establishment, and yield potential. With Nitro-Coat® each seed is inoculated with the correct Rhizobium strains and coated through a proven process that ensures a very high level of successful inoculation. The weight of the hairy vetch seeds will contain approximately 34% coating material that contains the inoculant and water holding material for better establishment and viability of the seed. There is no difference in the seeding rates between the coated and raw seed due to the increased germination and viability of the bulk hairy vetch seeds that are coated and inoculated. This coating material is not OMRI certified.