Pulses

We have long experience growing winter beans on heavy land, and spring peas (yellow, large blue and marrowfat) on medium to light land, as well as more recently soya. Pulses are well suited to no tillage systems, and inputs are kept to a minimum as a result.

Winter beans are direct drilled with the Cross slot from mid October, often following a cover crop of mustard which seems to help lower the disturbance caused by the drill as well as allowing the soil to carry a heavy machine at what can be a wet time of year. The only herbicide used is kerb, and with only 2 fungicides it makes it a very cheap crop to grow.

Tundra is currently the variety we are growing, with yields regularly exceeding 5T/ha.

In 2017 we grew our first crop of Soya for Soya UK Ltd. Drilled in late April it was harvested in mid September and yielded 2T/ha. A simple crop to grow but prices need to improve to make it competitive with peas.