Cereals 2025: More farmers wanted to help in major pulse project
© Gary Naylor Photography More pulse growers are being sought to get involved in pea and bean research, as a major project ramps up the number of on-farm trials in 2025/26.
Into its third year, the Nitrogen Efficient Plants for Climate Smart Cropping Systems (NCS) project is looking for 40 growers (pulse pioneers), up from 20 this season and 10 last season.
See also: How Arable Insights farmers are using cover crops in rotations
Tom Allen-Stevens, founder of the British On-Farm Innovation Network (BOFIN) coordinates the project’s farmer trials.
He says farmers are paid up to £2,500 and explains that they are looking for those who are on top of their game and want to know more how to grow them better.
Growers will also gain a better understanding of how it affects their farm’s carbon footprint as they will receive an individual report from the Farm Carbon Toolkit, who are modelling the data.
Grower’s experience
One farmer involved is Bryony Graham, who farms 300ha of heavy land near Harlow in Essex near the Suffolk border. Her aim is to find ways of producing more consistent yields.
“Our yields range from 3t/ha and we have historically hit 7 or 8t/ha.
“We want to grow more pulses, but this volatility in yield has been a problem on our heavy soils. We have short windows to establish beans and want to find new ways to bring some consistency to yields.”
Tom added that the current thinking is that a lot of variability comes at pod set, as plants can abort pods if stressed when flowering.
Nitrogen
That’s why Bryony has been looking at the use of BlueN with Corteva which is an endophyte.
The mix of bacteria is applied as a foliar application and then colonise leaves via stomata. The bacteria fix nitrogen and this can help with nitrogen supply during periods of plant stress
In addition, she has also been using SugaROx, which is a biostimulant which uses natural plant sugar-based molecules in a spray. “It gives plants a bit of a sugar rush and we are looking to see if it can help reduce pod loss.”
Soya replacement potential
Broiler trials have shown huge potential for UK-grown beans to replace imported soya.
John McArthur, managing director at McArthur BDC is overseeing the on-farm feeding trials.
He says the aim is to reduce carbon emissions by replacing half of the imported soya with homegrown pulses and legumes grown across 20% of the UK’s arable rotation.
However, there are limitations on their use in rations.
Nutritional issues
He pointed to results from work done by the project showing that processing beans to add value, such as de-hulling and heat treating, can increase the soya substitution potential.
Dehulling increased crude protein by 10% on a dry matter basis, reduced the fibre (neutral detergent fibre) by 44% and reduced tannins by 32%.
Tannins can act as an antinutritive factor for livestock, reducing the digestibility of protein and other nutrients.
This can lead to reduced feed efficiency, growth depression, and potential toxicity.
When heat treating beans, they saw a 19% reducing in vicine/covicine, 80% fall in trypsin inhibitors and a 29% reduction in condensed tannins.
All these are antinutritional factors that limit the inclusion of beans.
John said in a broiler trial, they were able to get up to 30% beans in the ration with no detriment to yield and bird health.
This resulted in a 68% reduction in soya use and consequently, a 40% reduction in carbon emissions.
He said 5% inclusion was the aim, but were able to go to 30%.
“This is far beyond what the literature said could be achieved, suggesting there is much more potential to replace soya in broiler feed.
“A trial is also being carried out in layers and they are awaiting results.”
