United Kingdom
February 24, 2025
NPZ UK, PGRO, YARA and The University of Lincoln have joined together for a 3-year project, funded by Innovate UK under the acronym ‘ANSWERS’, with the core objective of optimising on-farm yield, yield stability and quality of winter and spring bean crops by a study that establishes new best practices for crop agronomy.
(‘ANSWERS’ stands for Alleviating Nutritional Stress in Wider Environmental Rewards in Sustainable UK protein crop production).
Michael Shuldham, pulse product manager of NPZ UK
Michael Shuldham, pulse product manager of project partner NPZ UK says: “beans are an important part of the rotation as a profitable break crop that bring an improvement in soil structure and the well-recognised boost to the yield of the following wheat crop, with the benefit of an extremely low carbon footprint. There are also ecological benefits from a crop that is highly attractive to pollinators, other insects and birds.
“Yet these benefits can be offset for some growers by the variability of their on-farm yield – a substantial proportion of growers regularly achieve more than the 4.09 to 4.25t/ha control yields for winter/spring beans quoted in the PGRO Descriptive List, while others have to be satisfied with 2t/ha or even less.
“The overriding objective of ANSWERS is to increase the productivity and reliability of the winter and spring bean crops to make them a resilient and valuable part of the country’s food supply chain as a UK-produced protein source that, for example, can replace imported soya in animal feeds.
“Therefore ANSWERS will look at the reasons behind this variability in pulse yields by studying closely the macro and micro nutrition management of winter and spring sown beans to improve yield and yield stability through a series of four work packages.”
- The first will develop nutrition-focussed selection criteria to develop high nutrient use lines and new crop traits to integrate in these lines.
- In the second, the University of Lincoln will examine the role of improved overall plant nutrition combinations on the yield and agronomy of beans from field and pot studies.
- The third will set up and run a series of trials, both on a replicated field plot and greenhouse plot basis, to explore all relevant factors in detail to develop a standardised nutrient package for beans to increase on-farm yields.
- The fourth package will set out ways that the results produced will be effectively disseminated and understood for on-farm adoption.
Mr Shuldham adds: “one question we hope the project will answer for us is whether there is a varietal factor involved – can we further refine selection in our breeding programmes with some varieties responding better to differing input regimes?
“Also, on a broader perspective, do poorly understood nutrient requirements limit yield and drive yield instability – hence is this variability in yields due to different agronomy practices across farms?
“In summary, with our project partners in ANSWERS, we will be able to bring a wide ranging and comprehensive approach to field bean research by bringing together the knowledge and skills of NPZ UK, PGRO, Yara and the University of Lincoln for the benefit of growers and agronomists as well as for the UK trade and end users.”
The ‘ANSWERS’ project 10101411 is funded through Defra’s Farming Innovation Programme Small R&D Partnership Projects Round 3, via Innovate UK. Funding of £1,038,782 was awarded in July 2024 and the project runs until 30 June 2027.
Topics
Species
