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Winter pulse yields are better than expected – with many parched crops appearing to have overcome the twin challenges of heatwave and drought.

Andrew Smooker

Winter pulse yields are better than expected – with many parched crops appearing to have overcome the twin challenges of heatwave and drought.

“Growers are reporting winter bean yields have held up well,” says BASF eastern region agronomy manager Andrew Smooker, although spring beans look to have suffered more.

“Crops haven’t senesced naturally – they’ve run out of moisture and died. It is likely to effect yield. While it hasn’t been a high-pressure year for disease, anything that has helped keep plants greener for longer, like Signum, will have helped crops cope with the drought conditions.”

While pulse prices may be volatile, PGRO chief executive Roger Vickers says domestic demand is rising for protein crops.

“There are a combination of factors continuing to affect markets,” explains Roger. “The war in Ukraine is affecting everything, the pandemic influence lingers and shipping prices are continuing to rise but domestic demand, on the whole, is improving.

“The vast majority of trade for crop 2021 is finished. Feed beans peaked at £340/t ex farm and marrowfat peas smashed the £500/t barrier but there is now considerable volatility and although prices have fallen, they continue to fluctuate.”

PGRO senior technical officer Chris Judge says pulse varieties have performed reasonably well this year. “I’m expecting yields to be higher than the last two.  They won’t be breaking any records, but are likely to be closer to the long-term averages.

With a few exceptions, it’s been a low disease pressure year, says Mr Judge. But there has been substantially more downy mildew than in previous years both in bean and vining pea trial plots. The amount and timing of rainfall has made the difference, he adds.

Yield potential

For the last three years, we’ve had dry Aprils. This year – in the Midlands at least – there seemed to be enough residual moisture in soils to help crops cope with the dry spell. When rain arrived, it was a little earlier than in 2020 or 2021. This helped preserve yield potential.

“It’s been interesting to see the range of traits breeders are pulling through in the new varieties. The range is growing, and as well as the high-yielding material, we’ve some novel traits making an appearance.

In spring beans, for example, there are unusual characteristics such as higher protein, low vicine and low convicine, larger seed size and rust resistance to name a few.

“The best white and the best blue peas are yielding 115% or more relative to the control yield and several others are around 110%. Any growers that haven’t reviewed their variety choice for a while, I’d recommend that they take a look at the new list in November.”