Vetch, woolly pod
(Vicia villosa spp. dasycarpa)
- self-regenerating temperate annual
- for high rainfall and wide range of soils
- large seed
- for forage oats and as pasture pioneer.
Namoi wooly pod vetch is a climbing annual that normally grows through winter before flowering in September.
It is fairly drought-tolerant, but more frost-sensitive than clovers. Namoi will grow on a range of soils, from moderately acid granitic and sandstone soils to alkaline basalts, but not on hard-setting or waterlogged soils.
It is a good pioneer for new pastures or for winter grazing crops like oats, usually being sown in May or June.
It is a heavy seeder, persisting with winter grazing crops, but can become a weed in winter grain crops. It sometimes persists in permanent pastures for cattle on self-mulching clays and loose-structured soils, but must be spelled every 2 or 3 springs if grazed by sheep.
There is a rare, but sometimes fatal, disease in cattle grazing lush pastures of woolly
pod vetch, but the cause is not understood.
