New opportunities for pulses as SFI faces uncertainty  

The market for UK pulses has been declining over the past four years due to opportunities within the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) – but with the scheme closing early this year and potential cuts on the way, there’s an opportunity for growers to get land back into food production.

This was one of the take-home messages from the recent NPZ UK 2025 Field Day, which was also a celebration of 20 years of NPZ in the UK. 

“The spring bean market has been hampered by SFI options, especially legume fallow for the past 3-4 years, but if growers see opportunities to have reliable high yielding crops, with low vicine/convicine opening up new markets, hopefully we can start to bring those growers back into beans and growing food,” commented Michael Shuldham, NPZ UK commercial manager.

Visitors were shown some of the latest breeding work across OSR and pulses at NPZ’s site in Cambridgeshire this month. 

Dry springs 

For those looking for an option to mitigate some of the very dry springs we’ve seen in recent years, winter peas are an interesting option, Michael noted, and Feroe is a good example of a variety that gets podded up ahead of a potentially hot, dry May. 

The aim is to get a pea crop that’s well established and rooted before we see temperatures of 27ºC plus, when peas will abort their flowers. Getting good blight tolerance has also been a big step change in winter peas.

The Feroe at NPZ UK’s headquarters was planted in early November to avoid the disease pressure associated with drilling at the end of summer, as was advised in the early 2000s. Once established, Feroe has a frost tolerance of around -12ºC.

Michael added: “We believe lengthening rotations is the way forward, not necessarily with an SFI crop but with a food or feed crop.” While winter peas are a small market, it’s an area NPZ UK is looking to continue working on. 

LVC varieties  

Michael also emphasised the importance of low vicine/convicine (LVC) spring bean varieties for revolutionising the market – whilst the majority of beans currently go into animal feed, LVC takes out anti-nutritional factors, opening up new markets. 

Research on laying hens revealed that feeding high vicine beans at 15% of the ration resulted in reduced egg frequency and size, whereas LVC beans had no impact on egg quality or yield.

There are also important applications for human consumption, particularly in parts of the world where bean consumption is high. Around 5% of the population of North Africa is missing the G6PD enzyme which breaks down vicine and convicine, meaning eating too many unsoaked beans can be fatal – LVC varieties can mitigate this. 

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“The important thing is critical mass, getting these LVC varieties to the stage the Lynx is at – having that bulk. So that when soya is very expensive or there’s a drought in South America, we have that option of LVC beans that we can turn to,” Michael added.

Two of the key LVC varieties highlighted during the event were Maderas, which is a couple of years from market and combines low vicine with disease resistance and good yields; and Ketu, which Michael said is the one to watch – offering the first real step into changing the high vicine bean market to low vicine. 

It has a good downy mildew score, down only one point from Genius. It’s hoped that the first commercial seed crops will be available by spring 2026.

Other varieties of note were Futura – a step in the right direction for LVC with a moderate downy mildew score – and Loki, which is a high vicine spring bean variety but has a very strong rust score – a particular difficulty in the east. 

Yield isn’t everything 

Meanwhile from a yield perspective Yukon wouldn’t have made it to any list but it has a number of important attributes – a massive seed size and pale gold colour, as well as being very early, which makes peas viable for growers in the north. 

In trials it was harvested in Berwick just over two weeks earlier than the Lynx next to it. It’s also the best variety for human consumption, bar none, Michael said, and premiums can be very high. 

Marrowfat peas 

With UK breeders including NPZ having spent a number of years working on marrowfat peas, there’s recently been something of a flood of available varieties, and China striking a deal with Russia has added further challenges with cheaper Canadian peas on the market, Michael acknowledged. 

Nonetheless, NPZ UK is happy with where it sits in the market. Akooma is the first and more classic marrowfat pea variety, with the larger, squarer seed that end users value, especially in Japan’s high value snack market. 

Midori is the next variety on its way into the market, offering the higher yield and disease resistance of Takayama, whilst being a more ‘out and out’ marrowfat pea type – big seeded, square and green, with a strong growth habit. 

Once the first multiplication is complete it will go to market trialling.

Pea varieties of note

Other pea varieties of note included yellow pea Concerto, the star of the show; Bullet, an exciting variety coming through the programme with high value visual aspects and big seed size; and Butterfly, which is the brightest green pea NPZ UK has ever bred, and has an enormous seed size and is very square. 

A downside of the big seed size, however, is it pushes against the pods, resulting in a ginger stain at harvest during wet years.

Meanwhile, Carrington is a smaller green pea, especially in dry years, but it’s now the top grown pea in the market with strong disease resistance, consistency, standing ability, really high yield and good colour, Michael added. 

There are some significant markets for smaller peas and in the right conditions, Carrington is about the right size to go into any market. Pangea, meanwhile, is described by Michael as “Carrington but big seeded”. 

Lack of up-to-date guidance

As well as opportunities presented by the SFI, another issue facing field bean growers is the lack of up-to-date UK growing advice – NPZ UK cannot find evidence that the RB209 has been updated in at least 70 years.

“We know that the climate has changed, field conditions have changed, farmers’ machinery has changed, varieties have changed, yet we haven’t changed the advice in 70 years on how we actually grow these crops,” Michael said.

This prompted NPZ UK to start working with the PGRO, Yara and the University of Lincoln, with partial funding from Innovate UK, on a project to rewrite the recommendations for growers – trials are currently ongoing.

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