KindHarvest summary: Cambridgeshire grower David White trialled spring beans and oats in the same field to reduce inputs and use land more efficiently. The beans were intended to support the cereal through nitrogen fixation, while the oats helped occupy space that weeds and disease might otherwise exploit.
How the bicrop was established
The half-hectare trial was drilled at 300 kilograms per hectare: 250 kilograms of Vertigo spring beans and 50 kilograms of Elyann oats. A disc drill limited soil disturbance. The two crops matured together, but the oats established more vigorously and made up most of the harvested mixture.
Reported yield and margin
The combined crop yielded about 5.48 tonnes per hectare, comprising 4.49 tonnes of oats and 0.99 tonnes of beans. The comparison bean monocrop yielded 4.2 tonnes per hectare. The article calculated a bicrop gross margin of about £1,033 per hectare before grain-separation costs, compared with about £780 for the beans alone.
Inputs fell, but handling became harder
The bicrop received no in-crop fertiliser, fungicide, herbicide or biostimulant. A pre-drilling glyphosate application was used in both treatments. Reported input savings were about £62 per hectare after accounting for oat seed, but separating the harvested grain with old equipment was slow and would become a constraint at larger scale.
Treat the result as a farm trial
The result came from one season and a small area. Seed ratio, crop competition, weed pressure, harvest timing, separation equipment and markets will determine whether the model works elsewhere. White continued testing winter and spring combinations rather than treating the first result as a finished recipe. Related reading: intercropping, inputs and farm income.
Source and credit
This KindHarvest Team field-trial brief is based on reporting by Emma Gillbard for Farmers Weekly, published 29 April 2022. Read the full Farmers Weekly article.