The need for breeding for cereal legume combinability: experiences in The Netherlands

Summary

Particularly for organic farming, mixed cropping of cereal and legume crops can provide advantages in terms of nutrient use efficiency, weed suppression and more stable yields. Cereals benefit from the nitrogen fixing ability of legumes, which also result in higher protein levels in the cereal crop, improving its quality as fodder and potentially also as food. Grain legumes benefit from the reduced weed pressure in cereal crops. In the past 10 years, various combinations of cereal (particularly wheat, barley, oats and triticale) and legume (faba bean, peas and lupins) crops have been tested by the Louis Bolk Institute. To optimise the crop mixtures, each combination requires specific traits of the cereal and legume crop. So far, breeding has focused on mono-cropping. Including traits important for mixed cropping will improve the potential of mixed cropping. In this poster we describe the advantages of each cereal legume combination and the traits on which breeding is needed to optimise its potential.