Wholecrop beans can boost livestock performance, reduce reliance on imported proteins and improve the sustainability of both arable and livestock businesses, according to experts speaking at the NCS on-farm open day in December.
Hosted by Yorkshire beef and arable farmer Richard Barker, and organised by partners in the NCS project, the event brought together producers, advisers, seed specialists and processors to share practical experience and trial results.
Mr Barker farms in partnership with his father and nephew. Their main enterprise is finishing cattle – buying in Aberdeen Angus and other native stores at around 400kg and selling them as finished cattle to Dovecote Park under a Waitrose contract. He has more recently set up another business with his nephew, buying beef calves to rear and sell into the main finishing unit.
Everything produced on the arable side of the business is fed to the cattle and recent changes to the rotation have included introducing herbal leys which has enabled more grazing. Other crops include wheat, barley, beans and grass.
They initially began growing spring beans as a homegrown protein source, but yields have been inconsistent. However in the cattle ration they have performed very well, he said, with noticeable improvements in the performance of his older stores which achieved 1.3kg daily liveweight gain, compared to 1.1kg previously. This encouraged the team to continue and they have since largely switched to winter beans, all direct drilled with the hope of more consistent establishment and yield.
Yields have settled at 4-6t/acre with protein levels around 13%. “What we have found is that it tends to feed better than it tests. The performance has been far better since we introduced the beans and the cattle are more settled and content.”
Richard and the team had an opportunity to take part in a NCS project trial alongside Lizz Clarke of LC Beef Nutrition with a new intake of beef calves. This involved 140 animals split into two groups – one being fed a total mixed ration (TMR) based on herbal ley silage and the other on a TMR based on wholecrop beans.
“From the get-go the animals on the bean diet were flourishing more,” said Richard. The group on the wholecrop beans TMR gained an average of 1.19kg/day, compared with 1.05kg/day on the herbal ley ration – an advantage of 140g/day. Over the course of the trial, this translated into a 66% total weight increase for the beans group versus 49% for the herbal ley group.
He plans to continue using beans in the ration where possible, but supply is sometimes limited, he explained. “The challenge for us is how we can grow beans more consistently when we can’t control the weather. We need to produce a consistent end product for Dovecote and the consumer, so hopefully by farmers working together with experts like those in the NCS project we can improve our knowledge on how to grow beans better.”
Chloe Bridgett and Ian Clappison from Dovecote Park outlined the business’s focus on sustainability and supply chain transparency, particularly around the use of soya which it phased out of all livestock diets in 2022.
Ms Bridgett said: “This was really important to us as a processor because our main customer Waitrose was concerned about soya coming from areas that had been deforested. Every year we must report and sign a declaration saying we don’t have soya in our supply chain.”
Heather Oldfield of Limagrain – who is also a farmer and Pulse Pioneer within the NCS project – said that government-funded research is creating an opportunity to increase production of homegrown protein crops to replace imported soya.
The current area of combining peas, winter beans and spring beans in the UK is relatively small but significant, she said. She shared indicative costings for beans and combining peas acknowledging that returns on beans were ‘variable’ but highlighted the huge agronomic benefits and potential added value when fed to livestock. “In a mixed farming system they are a far more viable break crop,” she said.
Nickerson’s David Watson added: “It’s a wonderful thing to grow your own protein source and it’s probably cheaper than soya. So why aren’t more farmers growing peas and beans?” Reliability of beans is a major issue with erratic yields, he said. To combat this he encouraged farmers to consider alternative approaches including bi-cropping – particularly growing peas and beans together – where the resulting yields can outperform crops grown individually.
Michael Carpenter of Kelvin Cave ran through practical options for homegrown protein – including growing beans for wholecrop, dry rolling or as part of crimped mixes, crimping beans together with moist feeds like brewers’ grains or draff, forage peas baled as haylage as well as pea and beans grown together or in mixes. He stressed the value of growing proteins as a means to improve self-sufficiency and becoming less vulnerable to price volatility.
“If you’re feeding your own product back to your own cattle you’ve got a bit more control over the business,” he said.
Trials undertaken by Kelvin Cave as part of the NCS project investigated harvest efficiency comparing different forage harvester headers. For harvesting beans the maize header gave better fresh and dry matter yields, lower losses and less diesel use, except in the pea and bean mixes where the wholecrop header performed best.
Erin Matlock of PGRO which leads the NCS project, stressed the importance of rotation, recommending that pulses are only grown in the same field every six years to limit soil-borne disease risk. She also advised growers to make use of PGRO’s soil testing services for pea foot rot and to monitor sclerotinia noting that pathogens present in previous crops can significantly affect bean crops.
“With seed you want to have at least 80% germination,” she advised. “Make sure it is completely free of stem nematode and you should also have no more than 1% ascochyta.” She also recommended that growers using home-saved seed should get it tested for stem nematode.
Strong establishment requires proper seed bed preparation with no compaction, drilling at appropriate depth and timing and adequate moisture for germination, she advised. “Beans are terrible competitors out of the ground, so you want to do as much weed control as possible in your previous crops, to give these beans a leg up.” She recommended starting with a stale seed bed and making use of pre-emergence herbicides.
Diseases of concern include the ‘yield robbing’ chocolate spot which is most commonly seen in winter beans, because of overcast humid conditions and bean rust in both winter and spring crops is bean rust. “Once bean rust comes in, it can take over a crop. It happens during late flowering and you’re going to have a yield loss of 35 to 40% if not more.” The newly published 2025-26 descriptive list gives resistance ratings for varieties.
Viruses are a bit of an unknown in beans at the moment, she added. PGRO has recently completed the first year of a virus survey which aims to increase the knowledge available on the current virus situation. Those to watch for include bean leaf roll virus, bean yellow mosaic virus and pea enation mosaic virus. She advised growers to monitor aphids carefully prior to flowering. “IPM strategies that enhance natural predator activity are important for managing aphids. However, the threshold is 10% of plants with large colonies, so if 10% of your plants have colonies you need to consider an aphicide.”
For more information on the NCS project and opportunities for arable farmers to take part in paid on-farm trials visit www.ncsproject.co.uk
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