Give us your 'Pulses of Brilliance'

[skye @ bofin]

If there were three things from our list that you could change or understand better about pulse crops that would transform how they perform for you, what would they be?​

Crop production​

• How they fit best into the rotation
• Their yield performance and consistency
• Their impact on soil health, nutrient use efficiency and nitrate losses
• Their Impact on yield and inputs of following crops
• How they perform in novel ways, such as bi-cropping and whole cropping

Processing, feed utilisation, broader issues​

• The options to substitute soya-based feed products with homegrown pulses
• The impact on nutritive value of homegrown pulses through eg heat treatment or dehulling
• The effect on livestock productivity of increasing inclusion of homegrown pulses in diets
• The costs and carbon footprint of on-farm processing
• The forage value of whole crop pulses and legumes

 

[Roger Vickers]

Beans and peas are considered a 'break' crop. Many of their benefits being well appreciated, ( even if not always valued). Does this imply that the best place for them in a rotation is already realised as between cereal crops before wheat?

 

[Pete Iannetta (JHI)]

Ah ha! One of my pet annoyances. Why are legumes perceived as a "break" crop? They are a crop like any other, yet are labelled "break", only because of (current) dominant markets. I am more interested in the question: after which crops (or land use), might pulses perform best?