Growing a cereal and a pulse together in the same field has become a useful weed-control tool for an organic arable farmer in Norfolk, Farmers Weekly reported. Matt England, who crops 1,100 hectares of light sandy loam on the Fring Estate, says pulses grown alone are too open and get swamped by fat hen and thistle. "Adding 40kg/ha of barley does a good job controlling weeds by having a more competitive crop," he said.
On light soils that leach nutrients and hold little organic matter, pulses are a key part of his rotation, which runs from outdoor pigs to wheat or spring barley, then oats, rye and the intercrop. Over the years he has tried oats with beans, barley with peas and wheat with beans at different seed rates, as part of an Innovative Farmers field lab with the University of Reading and the Soil Association, within a Horizon Europe project of 17 organisations with 180 on-farm Living Labs in Europe, Egypt and Pakistan.
He calls the results "encouraging, but variable": bicrops have given 5-10% more yield than monocrops, and four of six comparisons improved the gross margin. The standout year was 2024, when 3.5 t/ha of peas went to Hodmedods for human food at a good premium and outperformed every other crop on the farm. Peas like a wet, dull spring, which recent dry springs have not provided. He now sows a 50:50 mix and lets the season favour one crop or the other.
Living mulches of clover established well but competed for moisture in dry springs, costing about 30% in yield, or £140/ha in net margin, though their fertility benefits also count. The practical problem is separating the harvested mix, since few buyers take it combined; his old dresser handles 2-3 tonnes an hour, so he has bought a larger one.
Trials in the wider project found that intercrops gave higher yields and protein than monocrops in unfertilised plots, that the benefit shrank as nitrogen rates rose, with about 75% of the recommended rate looking optimal, that intercrops held up better in dry years, and that they reduced diseases such as rust and net blotch.
Source: Farmers Weekly
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