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 levels of nitrogen is determined by how well the pulse crop grows and the level of nitrate in the soil at planting. If soil nitrate is high it means low nitrogen fixation.
Areas covered in this article are:
- important terminology
- nitrate-N benefit for following cereals
- harvest index (HI) and crop biomass
- measuring crop biomass
- how can this information be used?
