Nitrogen benefits of chickpea and faba bean
Summary
Chickpea and faba bean provide many benefits in northern cropping rotations, including the ability to fix atmospheric nitrogen (N2), resulting in more soil N for following cereal crops.
The amount of nitrogen fixed is determined by how well the pulse crop grows and the level of nitrate in the soil at planting.
Soil nitrate suppresses nodulation and nitrogen fixation. Thus, high soil nitrate means low nitrogen fixation.
Topics include:
- important terminology
- nitrate-N benefit for following cereals
- harvest index (HI) and crop biomass
- measuring crop biomass
- how can this information be used?
