Winterpea - Austrian

Winter pea is a cool-season annual legume crop that belongs to the family Fabaceae. Winterpea is thought to originally be from the Mediterranean region. These types of peas are used for human consumption as well as a cover crop, green manure, forage, and in food plots for wildlife.

Winter peas are generally sown in the fall and harvested in spring or early summer, thus named "winter" peas. This type of planting allows the peas to establish themselves before winter arrives, remain dormant during the coldest months, and then resume growing as soon as conditions become favorable in spring.

As a legume, the winter pea is capable of fixing nitrogen, which improves soil fertility and can reduce the need for synthetic nitrogen fertilizers.

Winter pea varieties are bred to be more frost hardy than their spring counterparts. The flowers of the plant are usually white or purple.