UFOP Projects Promoting the Cultivation of Native Grain Legumes

Dr Manuela Specht, Union zur Förderung von Oel- und Proteinpflanzen e.V.

In crop rotation, native grain legumes have indisputable advantages and constitute high-quality fodder for livestock! Given this knowledge, the UFOP has been promoting projects aiming at the expansion of cultivation and processing of broad beans, field peas and sweet lupine species in Germany for a longer period of time already. The targets and results of these UFOP projects shall be explained in greater detail by means of two selected examples:

(1)   Evaluation of new systems in soil management using oilseed rape and grain legumes in crop rotation:

• Project management: Department of Agriculture of the University of Applied Sciences of Southern Westphalia, Federal Republic of Germany
• Project life: July 2001 to November 2005

 
Wheat-dominated crop rotation sowed by plough and mulch was compared to crop rotation without the use of ploughs extended by grain legumes at the four locations. The principle of switching between grain and leaf plants as well as the utilisation of pioneer crop effects could be applied consistently by arrangement of the cultivation systems in the extended crop rotation.

By abandoning the use of ploughs, the project resulted in a reduction of up to 15 per cent in the work handling costs in the tight crop rotation already. The expansion of crop rotation by native grain legumes reduced the work handling costs in addition. These economies were produced by husbandry-related as well as process-related effects. By extending the break in cultivation, straw rot could take place without any deeper digging-in process which contributed to an inexpensive solution of the straw problem. Infection cycles were interrupted during the change between grain and leaf crop. On account of the process, the mechanisation required for dispersed crop rotation could be reduced by levelling out work peaks. The machine capital employed was used more efficiently in the course of the year.

 In growing operations, in particular, the ploughless cultivation systems on the basis of crop rotations expanded by grain legumes permit the cultivation of additional area without machine investments or additional labour.

(2)   Analysis of successful cultivation and marketing systems for grain legumes

• Project management: Institute of Farm Economics at the Federal Agricultural Research Centre FAL of Brunswick, Federal Republic of Germany
• Project life: May 2006 to November 2008

 
Although the cultivation of native grain legumes in Germany is decreasing in general, on closer examination regions with agricultural operations on the one hand as well as mixed feed manufacturers on the other hand are revealed, in which broad beans, field peas and sweet lupine species are cultivated or processed successfully. The strategies employed in these regions which are successful for grain legumes are not known in detail however or are not propagated.

This is the point, at which the project of the Federal Agricultural Research Centre FAL of Brunswick comes in: The target is to analyse the regionally successful developments in the cultivation of native grain legumes, to identify the success factors and to derive strategies for an expansion of the cultivation of grain legumes. In the process, the entire value chain shall be included from cultivation to feeding.

The active supervision of the project is carried out by a UFOP study group titled “Körnerleguminosen” (“Grain Legumes”). This approach includes, in particular, a close co-operation with the regional offices for consultation integrated in the UFOP Division “Protein-Bearing Plants” as well as in the Technical Commission “Economy and Market” and the culturists of native grain legumes. The experiences gained in the “GL-Pro” EU project as well as in other projects promoted by UFOP in the field of grain legumes will be included in the current project.

In addition to the actual project work, it has been planned to use targeted PR campaigns to communicate the strategies identified in the project to be successful for grain legumes in order to improve the cultivation and marketing situation for native grain legumes by improving their image. Regions with successful cultivation and marketing / processing strategies and a certain cultivation density of different species shall be used specifically as model regions for other areas, in which cultivation is still of lesser significance at present.