Brian Tuck

• Small grain production
• Legume intercropping for soil nitrogen and soil and water quality improvement.

We are screening various legume crops for suitability in intercropping with grain. These include low, medium and tall winter peas, various varieties of hairy vetch, various clovers, lentils, medic and fenugreek. To date, peas have been the most successful though we anticipate that newer varieties of hairy vetch may be suitable for intercropping. Vetch is well adapted to the low precipitation regions of the PNW. The newer varieties flower earlier in the season, enhancing nodulation and nitrogen fixation over other crops tried to date.

Other intercrop work compares half and full rates of winter peas with a full rate of winter wheat and varying rates of nitrogen/acre to determine nitrogen value for the wheat crop. We are also exploring the use of hairy vetch as a short-term cover crop prior to fall seeding of winter wheat and with spring wheat to see if we can gain benefits of a late summer cover crop.