🫛 Pea
A legume that breaks a cereal run and leaves nitrogen for the next crop.
Sowing
Luke (Hukka guide): peas and other legumes need at least a 5-year rotation so diseases do not build up. The best controls are rotation and healthy seed.
Soil and parcel
Pea is a strong preceding crop because it fixes nitrogen. Luke puts the nitrogen the next crop receives at roughly 20–30 kg/ha. Autumn-sown crops use it best.
Fertilising
Pea fixes its own nitrogen. Do not copy a cereal nitrogen rate. The 20–30 kg/ha figure from Luke is the effect on the next crop, not a fertiliser rate for the pea itself.
Yield and harvest
Harvest is the critical point in pea growing (the Hukka guide covers it separately). Drying and quality depend on whether the crop is for food or feed.
🔄 In the rotation
- Role
- An excellent preceding crop for cereals: it lowers their disease pressure and leaves nitrogen.
- Good preceding crop
- Cereals are suitable preceding crops. Do not sow pea straight after another legume if you want to break the disease cycle.
- Good following crop
- A cereal, especially a winter cereal, uses the leftover nitrogen. VYR: pea is a common preceding crop for rye.
- Gap on the same parcel
- At least a 5-year rotation for legumes (Luke, Hukka guide).
Other crops
Sources
- Luke: Herneen viljelyopas (Hukka-hanke, 2022)
- Trans Farm: Kuminan viljelyopas – kylvöä ennakoivat toimenpiteet
Links open public guides. Always check your own contract and parcel advice.
General rotation advice – not a substitute for advice, a contract or the law. Figures come from the sources, not from invention.