| dc.description.abstract | Vetches (Vicia spp.) are one of the oldest annual legume crops used in animal feeding throughout the temperate regions of Europe, Near and Middle East and North Africa. The most important species are bitter (V. ervilia (L.) Willd.), Hungarian (V. pannonica Crantz), common (V. sativa L.) and hairy (V. villosa Roth) vetches. They are used mostly in the form of fresh forage, forage dry matter, forage meal, silage, haylage, mature grain and straw, as well as for grazing. Generally, breeding programmes on bitter vetch, common vetch and Hungarian vetch are more advanced in the countries of South Europe, Asia Minor and Near East, while hairy vetch is becoming more and more interesting as green manure in North America and Japan. If cultivated for forage, an ideotype of a vetch plant should be characterised by slender stems with determinate growth, a number of photosythetically active leaves of at least 15 in full flowering and large leaflets. Determinate growth is one of the essential traits, since it prevents excessive lodging and an economically significant loss of lower leaves that, in a lodged stand, easily degrade. Closely related is uniform maturity, in terms of both concurrent flowering and pod and seed development, unlike the wild type in all vetches, especially in hairy vetch, notorious for its indeterminate stem growth and extremely prolonged time of flowering and seed maturing, with flowers, young pods and shattered seeds at the same time in one plant. | sr |
