View source for Pea

__NOTOC__{{Plantbox
| name = ''Pisum sativum''
| common_names = Pea
| growth_habit = herbaceous, climbing
| high = ?   <!--- 1m (3 ft) -->
| wide =     <!--- 65cm (25 inches) -->
| origin = Europe
| poisonous =     <!--- indicate parts of plants which are known/thought to be poisonous -->
| lifespan = annual
| exposure = ?   <!--- full sun, part-sun, semi-shade, shade, indoors, bright filtered (you may list more than 1) -->
| water = ?   <!--- frequent, regular, moderate, drought tolerant, let dry then soak -->
| features =     <!--- flowers, fragrance, fruit, naturalizes, invasive -->
| hardiness =     <!--- frost sensitive, hardy, 5°C (40°F), etc -->
| bloom =     <!--- seasons which the plant blooms, if it is grown for its flowers -->
| usda_zones = ?   <!--- eg. 8-11 -->
| sunset_zones =     <!--- eg. 8, 9, 12-24, not available -->
| color = IndianRed
| image = NCI peas in pod.jpg
| image_width = 240px    <!--- leave as 240px if horizontal orientation photo, or change to 180px if vertical -->
| image_caption = Peas are contained within a pod
| regnum = Plantae
| divisio = Magnoliophyta
| classis = Magnoliopsida
| ordo = Fabales
| familia = Fabaceae
| tribus = Vicieae
| genus = Pisum
| species = sativum
}}
{{Inc|
[[Image:Doperwt rijserwt peulen Pisum sativum.jpg|right|thumb|Pea plant]]
[[Image:Snow pea flowers.jpg|thumb|Pea flowers]]
[[Image:Split pea.jpg|right|thumb|left|Dry, yellow [[split pea]]s]]
[[Image:FrostedPeas.jpg|right|thumb|Frozen green peas]]
Pea. As known to horticulturists, the pea is the seeds and plant of 
Pisum sativum and its many forms, one of the Leguminosae;, grown for 
its edible seeds and sometimes for the edible pods.

The garden pea is native to Europe, but has been cultivated from 
before the Christian era for the rich seeds. The field or stock pea 
differs little from the garden pea except in its violet rather than 
white flowers and its small gray seeds. There are many varieties and 
several well-marked races of garden peas. Whilst peas are grown 
mostly for their seeds, there is a race in which the thick soft green 
pods, with the inclosed seeds, are eaten. The common or shelling peas 
may be separated into two classes on the character of the seed 
itself,—those with smooth seeds and those with wrinkled seeds. The 
latter are the richer, but they are more likely to decay in wet cold 
ground, and therefore are not so well adapted to very early planting. 

Peas may also be classified as climbing, half-dwarf or showing a 
tendency to climb and doing best when support is provided, and dwarf 
or those not requiring support. Again, the varieties may be 
classified as to season,— early, second-early, and late. Vilmorin's 
classification (Les Plantes Potagères) is as follows:
Left to themselves, the varieties of peas soon lose their 
characteristics through variation. They are much influenced by soil 
and other local conditions. Therefore, many of the varieties are only 
minor strains of some leading type, and are not distinct enough to be 
recognized by printed descriptions.

Garden or green peas.

Peas are one of the earliest garden vegetables to reach edible 
maturity. The date at which a mess of green peas could be gathered 
used to be regarded as an indication of a man's horticultural 
ability. In modern times, green peas grown far away to the South come 
to northern markets while the ground is still frozen and are eagerly 
purchased only to result in disappointment and a longing for the 
old-time quality. Such disappointment is inevitable, for even with 
refrigerator cars, express trains, and modern skilful handling, green 
peas grown hundreds of miles away cannot come to our tables for many 
hours, often not for days, after they have been gathered, and with an 
inevitable loss of the freshness, which is essential for satisfactory 
quality.

Peas do well in cool moist weather and will germinate and make a slow 
but healthy and vigorous growth in lower temperatures than most 
garden vegetables. The young plants will even endure some frost with 
little injury, but the blossoms and young pods will be injured or 
killed by a frost which did not seem materially to check the growth 
of the plant. For this reason it is generally most satisfactory to 
delay planting until there is little probability of a frost after the 
plants come into bloom.

The cultural requirements are simple, but a thorough preparation of 
the soil before planting is desirable, and the use of green and fresh 
manure should be avoided. The best depth of planting varies with the 
season and character of the soil, and early plantings on clay land 
should be covered only 1 to 2 inches deep, while later plantings on 
sandy land do best in drills 6 or 8 inches deep to be gradually 
filled as the seedlings grow. Generally anything more than surface 
tillage will do a growing pea crop more harm than good; but any crust 
formed after rains, particularly while the plants are young, should 
be promptly broken up.

Of the better garden sorts, from fifty to one hundred good seeds arc 
in an ounce, and a half-pint should plant 50 to 80 feet of row and 
furnish a sufficiency of pods for a small family for the week or ten 
days in which they would be in prime condition. For a continued 
supply one must depend upon repeated plantings.

Most of the best garden varieties can be well grown without 
trellising, but the sorts growing over 2 feet high will do better if 
supported. Nothing better for this purpose is known than brush from 
the woods, but this is not always available and a good substitute is 
the wire pea trellis offered by most dealers in horticultural 
supplies, or a home-made one made by strings stretched 2 to 4 inches 
apart on alternate sides of supporting stakes. The ingenuity of the 
home-gardener will devise good forms of trellising.

It is evident that green peas occupy too much ground to be a 
practical crop for a city lot or small town garden, and generally the 
town dweller can be most satisfactorily supplied from a nearby 
market-garden; and the great superiority of freshly gathered 
local-grown peas over those which have to be shipped in make this one 
of the best of crops for a gardener with permanent customers. The 
best cultural methods for field plantings do not differ materially 
from those given for the garden. No planting is so likely to give a 
satisfactory yield both as to quantity and quality as on an old 
clover sod on a well-drained clay loam, which should be well plowed 
in the fall or early winter and the surface worked into a good tilth 
as early as practicable in the spring.

Planting can be best done with a seed-drill so arranged that the rows 
are 12 to 36 inches apart, according to the variety, with occasional 
rows left blank for convenience in gathering.

Picking should be done after sundown or in early morning before nine 
o'clock and care be taken not to bulk the pods, as they are liable to 
heat and spoil.

Peas for canning.

There is no modern industry in which there has been greater 
improvement within the past ten or more years, both as to methods and 
the quality of the product, than in the canning of vegetables. This 
is especially noticeable in canned peas. First there has been a great 
betterment as to the varietal quality of the stock used. For canning, 
particularly when modern methods of harvesting and processing are 
used, it is important not only that the green peas be sweet and 
palatable, but that the largest possible proportion of the pods shall 
be in prime edible condition at the same time, and canners are 
influenced by these qualities in selecting varieties for their 
plantings, and in the cultural methods followed. The development of 
each planting is closely watched by an expert, who directs that it be 
cut and delivered at the factory on the day when he judges it will be 
in the best condition, the time for individual crops being sometimes 
modified by the capacity of the farmer to deliver and the factory to 
handle it. Not infrequently certain crops are left to ripen and be 
harvested as grain because of such conditions. In hot and sunny 
weather, the vines are cut either after five in the afternoon or 
before nine in the morning, hauled to the factory and from the wagon 
go direct to a specially constructed threshing-machine or "viner," 
which separates the peas and delivers them on a moving inclined belt, 
which throws out any bits of vines or pods. They are then washed and 
graded, and go to the processer. So promptly is this work done that 
it is known of peas being in the cans and being cooked before the 
wagon on which they were brought from the field could start for home. 
Usually peas put up by a well-managed cannery come to the table in 
more palatable condition than so-called fresh peas which were 
gathered ten to twenty-four hours before and shipped from 10 to 
several hundred miles to market.

Canners who are particular as to the labeling of their output often 
separate it into different grades, determined by the variety and size 
of peas and labeled somewhat as follows:

    Varieties              1st      2nd      3rd       4th
 
 Small, smooth seed,
 not over                  16/64    18/64     20/64    Run of crop
 Small, wrinkled seed,
 not over                  18/64    20/64     22/64    Run of crop
 Large, smooth seed,,
 not over                  20/64    22/64     24/64    Run of crop
 Large wrinkled seed,
 not over                  20/64    24/64     26/64    Run of crop

Varieties and seed.

Few vegetables have developed greater varietal differences affecting 
their horticultural or culinary value than garden peas. As to vines, 
there are sorts from 6 inches to 6 feet in height and those which 
very rarely form more than a single stem, while others are so 
branched that they often are wider than tall; some mature their crop 
very early and all at once, others not until the vines are fully 
grown or continuing through a long season; pods which are so broad 
and long that the inclosed peas never fill them, others in which the 
growing peas very often split the pod open; peas which are green, 
yellow or white, smooth and hard; others which are wrinkled, 
distorted and comparatively soft, even when fully mature. Very 
conspicuous variations of little practical importance are sometimes 
correlated with invisible qualities which are of great importance.

When grown for seed, peas of the garden varieties yield a 
comparatively small fold of increase, seldom over 10 or 12 and often 
only 2 or 3, so that it is more difficult than with most vegetables 
always to secure full supplies of certain sorts, and seedsmen's 
stocks are constantly changing, not only as to character but name. 

The following are now very popular varieties: Extra-early 
smooth-seeded—Alaska or Prolific Extra Early; early wrinkled 
seeded—Thomas Laxton, Gradus, Surprise; dwarf Excelsior, either the 
Notts or the Suttons; midseason—Advancer, Admiral,  Senator; 
late—Champion of England, Strategem.
 
However one should confer with the seedsmen as to the most available stock best suited for the particular needs.

Sugar or edible-podded peas.

These are a class little known in this country, but are largely grown 
in Europe. They are characterized by large more or less fleshy and 
often distorted pods, which are cooked when in the same stage of 
maturity and in the same way as string beans. Varieties have been 
developed in which the pods are as white, tender, and wax-like as 
those of the best varieties of wax- podded beans.

Field peas.

There are a number of kinds of field peas in which the vines are very 
vigorous, hardy, and productive and the peas generally small, hard, 
and becoming tough, dry, and unpalatable as they ripen. In one 
variety of this class known as French Canner, the very young and 
small peas are sweet and tender, and in this stage are put up by 
French canners under the name of "petit poise." The larger-seeded 
Marrowfat peas were formerly commonly used by canners, and large 
quantities are still packed. If this is done while the peas are 
sufficiently young and tender they make a fairly good product.

Split peas.

Large quantities of field peas, mostly of the smaller- seeded kinds, 
are used for split peas, the preparation of which consists in 
cleaning and grading, kiln-drying, splitting, and screening out the 
hulls and chips from the full half peas. This is all done by special 
machines, mostly of American invention. The annual consumption of 
split peas in the United States is about 50,000 barrels, of which, 
before the European war, 75 per cent came from abroad.{{SCH}}
}}

==Cultivation==
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===Propagation===
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===Pests and diseases===
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==Species==
<!--  This section should be renamed Cultivars if it appears on a page for a species (rather than genus), or perhaps Varieties if there is a mix of cultivars, species, hybrids, etc    -->
Several varieties of ''P. sativum'' have been bred. Widely cultivated examples include:
*''Pisum sativum'' var. ''macrocarpon'' is commonly known as the [[snow pea]] 
*''Pisum sativum'' var. ''macrocarpon'' ser. cv. is known as the [[snap pea|sugar snap pea]]

==Other peas==
{{Inc|
Congo P., Cajanus indicus. 
Everlasting P., Lathyrus latifolius. 
Glory P., Clianthus Dampieri. 
Hoary P., Pigeon P., Cajanus indicus. 
Scurfy P., Psoralea. 
Sweet P., Lathyrus odoratus.
{{SCH}}
}}

==Gallery==
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<gallery>
Image:Upload.png| photo 1
Image:Upload.png| photo 2
Image:Upload.png| photo 3
</gallery>

==See also==
* [[Black pea]]
* [[Split pea]]
* [[Sugar snap pea]]
* [[Yellow pea]]

==References==
*[[Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture]], by L. H. Bailey, MacMillan Co., 1963
<!--- xxxxx  *Flora: The Gardener's Bible, by Sean Hogan. Global Book Publishing, 2003. ISBN 0881925381  -->
<!--- xxxxx  *American Horticultural Society: A-Z Encyclopedia of Garden Plants, by Christopher Brickell, Judith D. Zuk. 1996. ISBN 0789419432  -->
<!--- xxxxx  *Sunset National Garden Book. Sunset Books, Inc., 1997. ISBN 0376038608  -->

==External links==
*{{wplink}}

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[[Category:Categorize]]

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