PEA and BEAN YIELD ENHANCEMENT NETWORKS (YENS) HELP TO ACHIEVE A SEED’S FULL POTENTIAL

Yield enhancement is at the heart of all LS Plant Breeding Ltd (LSPB) does as a breeder, so the company has continued its sponsorship of the Bean yield enhancement network (YEN) for a fifth year, and have added sponsorship of the Pea YEN this year. This will further increase LSPB’s support for the knowledge transfer and benchmarking that comes from this initiative run by ADAS in partnership with PGRO.

Michael Shuldham, LSPB Product Manager, comments, “as breeders of the market leading spring bean variety Lynx, and the newly listed top yielding Genius, we are proud to support the work going into the Bean YEN to enable improved and consistent performance of pulses for UK growers.

“For 2023 we have added the Pea YEN to our sponsorship to enhance our support of our portfolio of pea varieties led by yellow pea Orchestra and green pea Carrington.

Roger Vickers, Chief Executive of PGRO, continues, “the data for both pea YEN and bean YEN has been accumulating from 2019. Now, with four years of entries behind them, each YEN programme is now close to, or has exceeded, the magic 100 crops – the point at which more in-depth analytical tools can be used.  

“For each crop, a comprehensive set of variables are monitored including such factors as previous cropping, sowing date, seed rate, herbicide, fungicide and insecticide usage, yield achieved, and quality analysis. 

“For a detailed look at the current results, see the latest PGRO Pulse Magazine which has an article with summaries of Bean and Pea YEN data 2019-2022 (pages 12-13 of the Spring 2023 issue www.pgro.org/publications).

“Just a taste of the results revealed to date are shown in the two figures shown below giving site, soil and nutrition associations for the Bean YEN and yield component associations for the Pea YEN.”

ADAS and PGRO welcome new members, and YEN membership is open to anyone including farmers, agronomists and researchers – with sponsorship available on a first come, first serve basis. To participate in either the Pea or the Bean YEN for the 2023 crop, register at www.yen.adas.co.uk/networks-projects

Members receive a very comprehensive and worthwhile range of benefits including:

• One entrance into the annual Pea or Bean YEN benchmarking network (Members can enter multiple fields; additional charges apply).
• One free Soil analysis (Details and restrictions to be confirmed).
• A comprehensive report on your crop’s performance.
• One ticket to the Annual YEN Conference.
• PGRO Foot rot risk (peas).
• Lancrop leaf tissue and seed nutrition*.
• Askew and Barrett Ltd grain sample market quality assessment (peas)*.
• PGRO grain bruchid beetle damage assessment (beans)*.

*Analysis may be subject to limitations on crop development stage, date, or availability (enquire via email at peayen@adas.co.uk for more information).

Both figures to be reproduced ‘with acknowledgement to PGRO Pulse Magazine’.