I'm in my 3rd year of planting peas in the fall along with Jumbo Rye for soil enhancement and erosion control, with no supplemental fertilizer. I usually plant 50#/acre @$40 per 50# bag, but this fall only put out about 30...just to see what kind of stand the difference would make. With large seeds, that's not all that much when you consider plant density. Other thing worth noting is that I never use inoculant like some Legumes require.
Was out checking the other day and peas were up around 24 inches, just starting to bloom. Where peas were thick rye was thick. Where peas were sparse, rye was still visible, but there was a profound difference in height in the rye adjacent to a pea plant as compared to open areas where peas were missing. I don't have to get on my hands and knees and dig up the roots to look and see if the nitrogen nodules are on the roots. The rye tells me what I want to know.
Currently my operation is to harvest the combo in the spring when weather lets me get a cutting dried properly for baling, broadcast supplemental NPK fertilizer (not much), disc, spike harrow and pack, then drill in sorghum-sudan for a summer crop and go.
Point here is that AWPs are a super, economical soil enrichment/erosion protectant and well worth your time and money and even though they are sort of a vine, don't clog up your cutter nor baler. I had heard about them for years and with fertilizer prices a few years ago I decided to see if I could reduce those costs and still get good results in my haying operation. Obviously I can.
Was out checking the other day and peas were up around 24 inches, just starting to bloom. Where peas were thick rye was thick. Where peas were sparse, rye was still visible, but there was a profound difference in height in the rye adjacent to a pea plant as compared to open areas where peas were missing. I don't have to get on my hands and knees and dig up the roots to look and see if the nitrogen nodules are on the roots. The rye tells me what I want to know.
Currently my operation is to harvest the combo in the spring when weather lets me get a cutting dried properly for baling, broadcast supplemental NPK fertilizer (not much), disc, spike harrow and pack, then drill in sorghum-sudan for a summer crop and go.
Point here is that AWPs are a super, economical soil enrichment/erosion protectant and well worth your time and money and even though they are sort of a vine, don't clog up your cutter nor baler. I had heard about them for years and with fertilizer prices a few years ago I decided to see if I could reduce those costs and still get good results in my haying operation. Obviously I can.
