bob prohaska <bp@www.zefox.net> wrote:
[in regards to collecting roadside common vetch seeds]
>
> Collecting fully-ripe seeds is difficult. The county mows road
> shoulders at irregular intervals, making the plants hard to find
> at all and scattering what seeds might be present.
>
> I've tried grabbing a few whole plants at random times, hoping to
> find a few mature pods, but it seems that if visible flowers are
> present essentially no pods are filled out. Once bloom ceases the
> plants are surprisingly hard to find among the other weeds.
>

It turns out a few pods will ripen after a plant is pulled. Keeping
the stems wet might help a little, but it didn't help very much.

In the end several large clumps of vetch were pulled up and placed
in a bag to dry slowly. A small fraction of pods, presumably the
oldest, filled out and released seeds. I'll try to start a few now,
to check viability, and save the rest to plant in the spring.

Thanks for everybody's attention,

bob prohaska

On Sat, 15 May 2021 17:49:06 -0000 (UTC)
bob prohaska <bp@www.zefox.net> wrote:

>It turns out a few pods will ripen after a plant is pulled. Keeping
>the stems wet might help a little, but it didn't help very much.
>
>In the end several large clumps of vetch were pulled up and placed
>in a bag to dry slowly. A small fraction of pods, presumably the
>oldest, filled out and released seeds. I'll try to start a few now,
>to check viability, and save the rest to plant in the spring.

Thanks for the follow up. Kinda wondered how you made out :)

I noticed this picture:

https://www.gbif.org/occurrence/930740893

Was reported to have been taken on June 14 in Tennessee. Don't know
where your at but may give you some clue as to when they ripen. Maybe
keep on eye on where you got your plants too. I know around here the
brush hogs don't get everything and some plants recover pretty quick
afterwards...

--
Leon Fisk
Grand Rapids MI

Leon Fisk <lfiskgr@gmail.invalid> wrote:
> On Sat, 15 May 2021 17:49:06 -0000 (UTC)
> bob prohaska <bp@www.zefox.net> wrote:
>
>>It turns out a few pods will ripen after a plant is pulled. Keeping
>>the stems wet might help a little, but it didn't help very much.
>>
>>In the end several large clumps of vetch were pulled up and placed
>>in a bag to dry slowly. A small fraction of pods, presumably the
>>oldest, filled out and released seeds. I'll try to start a few now,
>>to check viability, and save the rest to plant in the spring.
>
> Thanks for the follow up. Kinda wondered how you made out :)
>
> I noticed this picture:
>
> https://www.gbif.org/occurrence/930740893
>
> Was reported to have been taken on June 14 in Tennessee. Don't know
> where your at but may give you some clue as to when they ripen. Maybe
> keep on eye on where you got your plants too. I know around here the
> brush hogs don't get everything and some plants recover pretty quick
> afterwards...
>
I'm about 20 miles west-southwest of Sacramento, CA. Much, much dryer
than Tennessee.

That image is rather different from what I'm collecting. It's shaped like a
green bean, longer and thinner than what I'm dealing with. The pods I'm
seeing are much shorter, usually with only 4-6 seeds. Much lighter in color
also, being no darker than pale brown. Superficially they resemble snow
peas, but shorter and at about quarter scale.

This past winter recorded only about eight inches of rain, perhaps the
local vetch would look more like the photos in a wetter environment.
Normal for this area is just shy of 20 inches. At this point the growing
season is over outside of irrigated areas. Despite that, the local vetch
grew quite luxuriantly during the very brief wet interval.

I've already put a few of the collected seeds into potting mix to see if
they do anything. If they grow, good. If they don't I'll put the rest
of the seeds in the fridge and hope for the best.

Thanks for reading!

bob prohaska