About a mile from his office at the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center, Thomas Devine has reduced nine years of research to a 3-foot-wide strip of earth that runs about half the length of a football field.
There, between two rows of rye, Devine grows his peculiar variety of a crop with a monster-like name: hairy vetch. And he has big plans for it - such as revolutionizing world agriculture.
"We're hoping to get a good set of seeds here. All the conditions seem to be right for it," said Devine, plucking a few of the plants from the rich brown soil.
Devine, a researcher at the agency's Sustainable Agricultural Systems Lab, hopes farmers will replace much of their synthetically produced fertilizers, chicken pellets and cow manure with his variety of vetch, which he calls Purple Bounty. Some who have tried it think it has potential.
"It could be really helpful, in that it will give us more flexibility," said Nick Maravell, who raises corn, barley, soybeans and hay on a 170-acre organic farm in Frederick and Montgomery counties.
Crop rotation - a practice that goes back to Roman times - works in part because plants such as wheat, oats and barley are hardier when grown in soil where other plants have left nitrogen. Hairy vetch is a part of that cycle, using bacteria that pull nitrogen from the air for the plant's own use during its winter and spring growing season. When the plant dies in May or June, the nitrogen stays in the soil, enriching it for crops such as corn, tomatoes and pumpkins.
After nine years of cross-breeding, Devine said he has developed seeds with the right characteristics for a superior vetch: It will survive as far north as upstate New York and flower at a more opportune time than current varieties. Devine also designed it to be plowed into the soil to make for more abundant harvests of corn, tomatoes and pumpkins.
Ideally, farmers will plant Purple Bounty, like other varieties of cover crops, in the fall. They'll harvest the stalks when the plant flowers in May and let it lie in the fields, becoming a mat of dead material that prevents erosion. The ground cover can also cut back on weed growth, hold needed moisture in the soil and reduce the need for fertilizer.
Hairy vetch has long been a favorite among organic farmers, but the improved variety could increase the market for it among conventional farmers and enhance its reputation among some organic growers.
