Grain legumes intercropped with cereals and other partners
With regional cultivation of grain legumes like peas and beans, local resources can be used to decrease soya imports and produce fodder for monogastric animals – especially pigs and chickens. However, cultivation in pure stands is a challenge, with weed infestation, diseases and storage posing potential risks. For this reason, advisers from FiBL Switzerland, together with resourceful farmers and other actors, developed cultivation systems for intercropping legumes with cereals and other partner crops, from 2009 to 2019.
The best and most simple variant was an intercropped cultivation of field peas with barley. Field beans found a suitable intercropping partner in winter oat, while strong-growing field peas prefer triticale. Even field peas in combination with camelina are a veritable alternative to cultivation in pure culture. Lentils or blue lupins can also be intercropped with suitable partners. Intercropping partners should have the same growth and maturation behaviour and current market demand. When intercropped, legumes are supported by their partners, which prevents lodging. Moreover, the denser plant cover does a better job at suppressing weed. Intercropping also serves as risk insurance in case one crop fails. Thanks to cooperative Swiss feed mills and their decision to receive, process, and separate intercropping yields, organic peas and field beans' cultivation has increased roughly tenfold since 2009.
Demonstrational network Pea/Bean
Peas and beans are important for sustainable, protein-rich and regional livestock feeding. Also, for human consumption, domestic legumes have been rediscovered. In 2015, the cultivation of peas and field peas in Germany doubled compared to 2014. Many farms have only just started or resumed cultivating grain legumes. There are many questions still unanswered, for instance, on how to use the crops on the farm. To find answers and concepts for these questions, the “model demonstration network for the expansion and improvement of the cultivation, and the use of legumes with focus on peas and beans in Germany” (Modellhafte Demonstrationsnetzwerk zur Ausweitung und Verbesserung des Anbaus und der Verwertung von Leguminosen mit Schwerpunkt Erbsen und Bohnen in Deutschland, DemoNetErBo) began in 2016. The project is managed by the Landesbetrieb Landwirtschaft Hessen (LLH, a public sector vocational training and advisory body of the German state of Hesse) while FiBL Germany is responsible for knowledge transfer.
www.demoneterbo.agrarpraxisforschung.de: Homepage of the demonstration network
Cultivation of organic soya in Switzerland and in Eastern Europe
Soya is a valuable protein source for both animals and humans because its protein structure is very suitable for consumption. For a long time, only edible soya in organic quality was cultivated in Switzerland, primarily for tofu production. Due to the developments in breeding over the last decades (in Switzerland, soya has been bred by Agroscope for over 30 years) and the good prices thanks to the increasing demand, soya has become an increasingly interesting crop for Swiss arable farmers. Moreover, soya has hardly been affected by diseases or pests. Now that Bio Suisse, the umbrella organisation of Swiss organic farmers' associations, decided that, from 2022 onwards, ruminants will only be allowed to be fed with feed produced in Switzerland, the cultivation of organic soya as animal feed gained momentum; the demand is enormously high. However, the prices are significantly lower than those of edible soya.
Since 2013, FiBL has been involved in several projects in Switzerland to improve organic soya cultivation. Trials to optimise cultivation technique and advisory material were created and approaches for solutions were developed.
Our activities at FiBL range from supervising the breeding of weed suppressing, location-adapted varieties to the improvement of the cultivation technique, extension especially in mechanic weed control, optimisation of collection points, connecting actors, as well as seeking answers to questions concerning processing. FiBL Switzerland has carried out variety trials under organic conditions in cooperation with Agroscope since 2013 in the framework of various projects.
Sweet lupins – intercropping and resistance against anthracnose
After soya, the white and blue sweet lupins possess the highest quality protein of all the domestic grain legumes and can – unlike soya – be shred for use as fodder without further processing. Additionally, they are also very interesting for human consumption. As a variety that is tolerant to the cold and relatively stable and rich in blossoms with an intense root system, lupins can enrich the crop rotation and the landscape. They can also be grown in locations that are too cool for soybean cultivation. However, they are sensitive to pH values over 7 and late weed infestation. FiBL, together with Getreidezüchtung Peter Kunz (GZPK), tries to tackle the problem of weed infestation in blue lupins by intercropping cereals and tests various intercropping combinations as well as lupin varieties. The white lupin, which might be best suited for the local conditions of all the three varieties, is very susceptible to the fungal disease anthracnose. FiBL Switzerland checks how tolerant marketable varieties and not yet marketable breeding lines are towards the disease. FiBL also tests gene bank material from all over the world and started to cross breed and pre-breed to increase disease resistance.
Systematically explore intercropping of peas and lentils
Within the project PROMISE, FiBL Switzerland investigates pea-barley and lentil-pea species mixtures and compare them to single crop cultivation. It is the successor of the ReMIX project. The aim is to optimise intercropping systems and promote legume cultivation in Switzerland. The focus is on the influence of intercropping on grain and protein yield, spread of diseases, pests and associated flora, N supply for the subsequent crop and the accumulation of pathogens in the legume crop rotation. Special attention is given to the symptoms of soil fatigue in pea and lentil. Different idiotypes of pea and lentil will be tested in field experiments in order to reach broadly based and scientifically sound conclusions. The goal is to reduce rotation breaks of legumes by optimising the selection of intercropping partners. PROMISE will test novel non-destructive methods and assessments tools on organic farms in close cooperation with farmers and cantonal organic consultants. Successful combinations will be validated in demonstration trials and discussed with the farmers.