
A ground-breaking project to show how pulses can reduce greenhouse gas emissions is set to enter its second year – including a number of Midland farmers.
The Nitrogen Climate Smart (NCS) initiative aims increase pulse and legume cropping in arable rotations to 20% (currently 5%) – and displace up to half the soya currently imported into the country for animal feed.
The PGRO-led initiative involves a consortium of 17 industry partners – and hundreds of farmers. It seeks to rapidly evolve knowledge and understanding of growing peas and beans – while testing and trialing new feed rations.
Funded by Defra’s Farming Innovation Programme and delivered by Innovate UK, the consortium aims to reduce emissions by 1.5Mt CO?e per annum – equivalent to 54% of the maximum potential for UK agriculture.
Achieving the goal will be steered by science – and proven by farmers through a series of paid-for on-farm trials, says PGRO chief executive Roger Vickers. These are being coordinated by the British On-Farm Innovation Network (BOFIN).
Bringing together knowledgeable individuals like this – and sharing ideas between partner organisations – is at the heart of NCS, explains Mr Vickers. “There’s never been a project on this scale with this much ambition.”
Pulse Pioneers
BOFIN founder and farmer Tom Allen-Stevens says has been delighted by the level of interest from across the farming industry. “The engagement we’ve had has been fantastic,” he says.
“We’ve had a huge amount of press coverage and well over 300 people have got involved with our PulsePEP, an online hub for the farming community to discuss best-practice pulse cropping, exceeding our initial target.”
Ten innovators – called Pulse Pioneers – have been selected to receive payment in exchange for working with scientists. They are co-designing trials to carry out on their own farms, with crops being drilled this spring.
The Midlands is well represented amongst these trials. The ‘Pulse Pioneers’ – a group of innovative farmers working with scientists to co-design and carry out crop trials on their farms – include Paul Barnes in Lincolnshire, Will Oliver in Leicestershire, and Anna Pearce in Northamptonshire.
Mr Barnes recalls his grandfather telling him to “look after the soil and it will look after you.” That advice has stayed with him since his childhood, he says. “We’re exploring lots of things on the farm, but everything has to start with the soil.”
Understanding soil
Mr Barnes has been farming organically in Lincolnshire for 20 years, joining the South Ormsby Estate as estate manager in 2018. After two years of conventional farming, he started the two-year process of converting the estate’s in-hand land to organic. Today, 640ha (1,600 acres) is either fully organic or in conversion.
“We continued farming conventionally for a couple of years so that we could understand where we were at the beginning – that was key,” Mr Barnes explains. “We did a mass soil audit across every bit of land, and we still do that today when we take on new land.
The estate has a seven-year temporary ley rotation which predominately grows pulses, spring wheat, spring barley and spring oats. “We aim to grow winter barley and winter oats after vining peas, but we focus on spring cropping because in between crops we’re trying to support our livestock rotation.
“We’re paddock mob grazing across arable fields, so as soon as the combines go in we plant cover crops as we’re trying to keep the cattle outside 365 days a year.”
Mr Barnes has taken part in the ADAS Bean Yen project and has tried different practices with spring beans to try to understand what the crops needs.
“We first grew beans on a conventional system during the transition period – we direct drilled them and worked with an inter-row demonstrator.
“My organic beans were conventionally established through ploughing, pressing and drilling to give them root mass.
The organics outperformed the conventional system. But I think that was down to the establishment process and that’s the key. Everyone is trying to go for a regenerative approach (minimum till or no till) but when a crop turns around and tells you it needs open space and air for a rooting system, you need to give it to them.”
At present, spring beans and vining peas suit his system best. “We’re based on the Lincolnshire Wolds, so the soil is undulating. Spring beans suit our rotation, but we’ve just started working with a local contractor and local vining pea company. So, we have two options for adding pulse crops into the rotation.”
Mr Barnes was keen to join the NCS Project to further understand the benefits of growing pulses.
“People often question the returns, but I’m interested in the bigger, wider picture of what we can do. We’ve got to try to understand the benefits of pulse crops. However, we need to know the failures too, such as harvest losses.
“Being organic, I need to fully understand the benefits of including them in a rotation and where they should sit. “The spring wheat that followed spring beans last year was excellent – we need to know exactly why that is.”
Mr Barnes thinks understanding more about pulse production and how the UK can become more self-sufficient in its protein supplies should be a priority. “We know pulses will fix nitrogen in the soil but where else can we lead this crop?” he says.
“We had a lot of discussions when I was doing the bean YEN about how we can introduce anti-pod shatter into the system because one of the big losses we do get on a bean crop is through the combine header. How can we change things around to benefit and increase the pulse area across the country?”
To find out more about becoming a Pulse Pioneer and joining the PulsePEP, visit ncsproject.co.uk
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