This session at the Organic Growers Gathering in 2024 explored the potential and challenges of integrating more dried beans into arable and horticultural crop rotations.
Chaired by Dr.Julia Cooper the session was kicked off by Nick Saltmarsh from Hodmedod’s who spoke about the market for dried beans, how Hodmedod’s is trying to increase the availability of British organic pulses and grains and the value of growing high value rare bean varieties on a small scale. Dr.Imelda Uwase from Reading University then spoke about her PhD on maize-legume intercropping and the Leguminose project which aims to increase legume-cereal intercropping throughout Europe, how this can be adapted on a smaller scale to a horticultural setting was explored. Lastly, Isi Mackintosh discussed ORC’s LiveBean project part of Liveseeding and OPER8 where different individual varieties and mixtures of field beans have been trialled under organic management. The potential to optimise variety choice and mixes to reduce the challenges of organic production systems including weed management was highlighted.
