Legumes in Finnish agriculture: history, present status and future prospects

Abstract

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.

Effect of pea and spring cereals intercropping on grain yield and crude protein content

“…In many countries, legume plants have recently been receiving increasing attention from researchers and growers (Hauggaard-Nielsen et al 2009, Mariotti et al 2009, Stoddard et al 2009, Mikić et al 2010. Pea (Pisum sativum L.) is the most common legume in crop rotations and quite productive in temperate conditions, as well as in Lithuania (Auskalnis 2001).…”

Linkage Map of a Gene Controlling Zero Tannins (zt-1) in Faba Bean (Vicia faba L.) with SSR and ISSR Markers

“…To date, the average faba bean cultivation area is close to 2.5 million hectares annually, which ranks fourth among cool-season crops [2]. It has been demonstrated that growing faba bean is the most effective strategy for managing soil fertility through crop rotation, which contributes to sustainable agriculture [3].…”

Use of semi-leafless peas (Pisum sativum L) with enzyme addition in diets for broilers

“…Peas and other domestic legumes offer the possibility to improve self-sufficiency in protein-rich feedstuffs (Gatel 1994). They have an important role in the crop rotation particularly in organic farming due to their ability to fix nitrogen (Stoddard et al 2009). …”