01/28/09 Researching hypernodulating peas for better wheat fertility

Farm and Ranch January 28, 2009 As a legume, peas fix nitrogen which is beneficial to a subsequent wheat crop. What if you were to grows peas with the wheat crop and kill them before harvest? That is something Scot Hulbert, Cook Endowed Chair in Cropping Systems Pathology at Washington State University is beginning to research. But he's not using just any pea, but hypernodulating mutants to intercrop with wheat. Hulbert: "The hyper nodulation has more nodules, more nitrogen fixing nodules on its roots. A lot more. We are hoping some of that will be available to a wheat plant growing right next to it." It works that way out on the prairie. Hulbert: "In the prairie they know that some of legumes out there will field some of their neighbors. You don't have to grow a crop, plow it down and work it into the ground and then feed the grass plant next to it. We know that grass plants can feed right off of those legumes in the prairie. We don't know well this will work in an agricultural field because those prairie soils are full of microrhiza and beneficial fungi and fungi that are making bridges between plants. So we just have to see how well this is going to work in a wheat field." Hulbert says hypernodulating peas fix nitrogen whether you put down additional nitrogen or not, while regular peas would not nodulate much if you apply nitrogen. I'm Bob Hoff and that's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.