Growing Food: A Guide to Food Production

UTILISATION

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and eaten as a pulse, or split and used as dhal, or ground into flour to make

chapattis, paste balls and curries. It can be mixed with other more valuable

pulses such as chickpeas or pigeon peas. The seed is also used as animal and

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  from it, but not silage. Fresh young plants are harmful to horses, but not to

  
  


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LIMITATIONS

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  of this section on the vetch/grass pea.

  
  


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  eaten for prolonged periods—see the first two pages of this section on the
  vetch/grass pea.

  
  

188 TONY WINCH

Seed—mainly for human food, especially in times of famine. It is either boiled

The leaves and immature pods can be boiled and eaten as a vegetable.

poultry food and in homeopathic medicine.

Whole plant—either grazed, or cut and carried to animals. Hay can be made

Green manure—at a seed rate of about 65 kg/ha; about the same amount of

sheep, cattle or rabbits.

Nitrogen is sometimes applied.

Catch crop—between rice crops, both as a grain crop and for fodder.

Yields of vetch/grass pea are normally low.

The seed is very deficient in methionine and tryptophan - see the first two pages

The long, straggling plants can become a weed, in barley for example.

Lathyrism (paralysis of the lower limbs) is a potential danger when the grain is

2C. OILSEED CROPS

About 90% of the oil derived from plants comes from only ten or twelve crop
species, though about two hundred other crops contain usable amounts of oil and are
used locally. Crops such as soybean, maize and cotton are important sources of
vegetable oil, though because their oil is a by-product they are often not regarded as
being true oilseed crops. The term “oilseed” is used to describe what are in fact
either fruits (such as olive and sunflower) or seeds (such as rape and soybean). The
importance of oilseed crops is likely to increase as non-renewable sources of mineral
oils become exhausted, unavailable and/or increase in price.