The LEG-ITA Project
Innovative approaches to determine grain LEGume yield and yield stability in ITAlian cropping systems
In Europe (EU), there is an increasing interest in grain legumes, because of the ecosystem services they provide, their nutritional value and the current EU dependence on non-EU countries grain legumes are cropped both as feed, and as food.
At the EU level, the surface and production devoted to grain legumes has decreased since the seventies for all crops except soybean. However, for broad and field bean, lupins, chickpeas and lentils, this trend has stopped around 2010 probably because of the increased share of organic arable Utilised Agricultural Area (UAA), as organic farms are required to include legumes to support their multiannual crop rotation diversification (EU Reg. 2007/838 and the EU Reg. 2018/848).
With less than 5% of the EU UAA dedicated to these crops, the grain legumes surface remains low.
Moreover, in 2018, the European Commission reported that the level of self-sufficiency for plant proteins is low, as it mostly depends on soybean complex that is imported for 90%.
In this context, several research projects have focused on the grain legumes production decline in EU, underlining that the reasons behind this decline are complex and distributed all along the food system from the production to the consumption levels.
Some scholars consider that grain legumes, apart from soybean, are minor crops due to the low surface, a lack of breeding activities, the low availability of statistical data and the overall reduced attention from agronomic research, as such in crop models and agricultural practices optimization.
At the production level, several studies have argued that the low share of grain legumes in UAA is due to different drivers as such low productivity and low income, technological lock-in, and a low temporal yield stability.
Increasing the temporal yield stability of grain legumes has thus been identified as key factor at the production level both to enhance the introduction in crop rotations of grain legumes or to prevent the substitution of these crops.
Recent studies on grain legumes yield stability have underlined in Northern Europe, the grain legumes yield is as stable as in other major spring crops like spring cereals or rape seed.
At the moment, knowledge about grain legumes yield and yield stability at the farm level in Italy is poor. For this reason, it is of paramount importance to increase our knowledge of the conditions (site characteristics and crop management techniques) that result in higher and more stable yield to support a larger adoption of grain legumes in Italian and European cropping systems.
The LEG-ITA project aims to investigate the main factors driving the yield stability of two grain legumes: faba bean (Vicia faba) and chickpea (Cicer arietinum). This objective aims to provide support for decision-making processes, both at the agricultural level and along the supply chain.