Legumes are important in world agriculture, providing biologically fixed nitrogen, breaking cereal disease cycles and contributing locally grown food and feed, including forage. Pea and faba bean were grown by early farmers in Finland, with remains dated to 500 BC. Landraces of pea and faba bean were gradually replaced by better adapted, higher quality materials for food use. While grain legumes have been restricted by their long growing seasons to the south of the country, red, white and alsike clovers are native throughout and have long been used in leys for grazing, hay and silage. Breeding programmes released many cultivars of these crops during the 1900s, particularly pea and red clover. A.I. Virtanen earned the 1945 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on both nitrogen fixation and silage preservation. Use of crop mixtures may appear modern, but farmers used them already in the early 1800s, when oat was used to support pea, and much effort has been devoted to improving the system and establishing its other benefits. Although international cultivars have been easily accessible since Finland's 1995 entry into the European Union, the combination of feed quality and appropriate earliness is still needed, as < 1% of arable land is sown to grain legumes and an increase to 9-10% would allow replacement of imported protein feeds. Climate change will alter the stresses on legume crops, and investment in agronomy, physiology and breeding is needed so that farmers can gain from the many advantages of a legume-supported rotation.

Abstract. The characteristics of protein pea (Pisum sativum L.) adapted to cultivation in Finnish conditions were specified. Ideotypes for pure and mixed stands were defined separately. Factors affecting seed yield, protein yield and protein content were determined. Efficiency of biological nitrogen fixation in the varieties was evaluated at two nitrogen application levels, 16 and 80 kg/ha. Selection methods for increasing protein content were discussed. The commercial varieties bred during the programme were presented. The effect of the gene af on different characteristics of the pea was the central object of the studies.The ideotype of peas for cultivation in Finland has to be of the afila-type. This concerns cultivation in both pure and mixed stands. Afila-peas gave seed yields and protein yields as high as the leafed ones. The lodging of afila-peas throughout the generative growth phase was less than that of the conventional leaf types. In mixed cropping the most suitable afila-peas generally formed almost completely unlodged stands together with cereals. The best seed yields were given by the varieties with a stem height of 61 to 94 cm. Due to competition, the corresponding height in mixed stands ranged from 80 to 100 cm. For the same reason, varieties to be used in mixed stands must possess a fairly large seed size and fast growth rate after emergence.The optimum flowering period lasted from 19 to 28 days. The varieties must be early, with a growing time from 91 to 101 days. Late varieties are not adapted to northern conditions, giving low yields and poor quality.The mean yield of the varieties was 4500 kg/ha in pure stands. The high nitrogen application level of 80 kg/ha did not increase pea yield in comparison with the 16 kg/ha level. In contrast, it enhanced the protein content by 1 % and the protein yield slightly. In mixed stands the mean total yield was 4700 kg/ha. The hectare yields of crude protein reached levels of 990 and 900 kg respectively. Early varieties tend to have a low protein content. The protein content ranged from 15.4 to 27.6 per cent in the unselected line material. A negative, although weak correlation was found between seed yield and protein content. A variety with the highest protein yield must exceed the average level both in seed yield and protein content. The varieties with the highest protein yields had a content of 23 -27 per cent.

Total and soluble dietary fibre, total and soluble pentosan and β-glucan contents, activities of α-amylase (EC 3.2.1.1) and endo-β-xylanase (EC 3.2.1.8) and viscous properties of aqueous suspensions of wholemeal flours during heating were determined in nine winter rye cultivars (Secale cereale L) grown in Finland in 1998-2001. There was marked annual and varietal differences in grain quality. In the rainy summer 1998 the yield was low, grains were small and dietary fibre content of the grains was high. Xylanase activity of the grains was high, which corresponded to the high content of soluble pentosans. In the dry summer of 1999, the pentosan content of the grains was low and β-glucan content high. The effect of weather conditions and cultivar were also apparent in the differences in falling numbers, amylogram and swelling curve results. The two hybrid rye cultivars Esprit and Picasso had consistently highest falling numbers and amylogram peak viscosities. The activities of α-amylase and xylanase had a moderate positive correlation with total pentosan content and the content of soluble pentosan. Xylanase activity had better correlation with the viscous properties of flour-water suspensions than α-amylase. Surprisingly, α-amylase activity had only a moderate negative correlation with falling number.

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Breeding work to develop varieties adaptable to Finnish conditions was initiated at the Hankkija Plant Breeding Institute in 1969. The production of field bean seeds was considered a means of substituting for imported protein feed sources. Finland is a very marginal production area; varieties grown in Finland must be adapted to sowing in May and to short summers with long days and cool autumn weather. Local populations maturing early were frequently used in crosses with foreign material. Strains from the ICARDA collection and Soviet varieties included in the crosses considerably increased the genetic basis of the breeding material. Some 214 crosses were made in 1970—87. Two commercial varieties, Hankkijan Mikko and Hankkijan Ukko, were released during the course of the programme. They were about two weeks earlier in maturing than, e.g. the German variety Herz Freya. Crosses and selections of current interest are aimed at reaching still earlier maturity than that of Mikko and Ukko. Determinate habit with ti gene has been transferred to locally adapted early material in order to attain lines with reduced vegetative growth,uniform ripening and improved lodging resistance. The white-flowered character is combined with earliness and determinate habit in order to obtain a lowered tannin content in seeds.