Innovative Pulses for Western European Temperate Regions: A Review

Alicia Ayerdi Gotor,Elisa Marraccini

doi:10.3390/agronomy12010170

Abstract

In Europe, there is an increasing interest in pulses both for their beneficial effects in cropping systems and for human health. However, despite these advantages, the acreage dedicated to pulses has been declining and their diversity has reduced, particularly in European temperate regions, due to several social and economic factors. This decline has stimulated a political debate in the EU on the development of plant proteins. By contrast, in Southern countries, a large panel of minor pulses is still cropped in regional patterns of production and consumption. The aim of this paper is to investigate the potential for cultivation of minor pulses in European temperate regions as a complement to common pulses. Our assumption is that some of these crops could adapt to different pedoclimatic conditions, given their physiological adaptation capacity, and that these pulses might be of interest for the development of innovative local food chains in an EU policy context targeting protein autonomy. The research is based on a systematic review of 269 papers retrieved in the Scopus database (1974–2019), which allowed us to identify 41 pulses as candidate species with protein content higher than 20% that are already consumed as food. For each species, the main agronomic (e.g., temperature or water requirements) and nutritional characteristics (e.g., proteins or antinutritional contents) were identified in their growing regions. Following their agronomic characteristics, the candidate crops were confronted with variability in the annual growing conditions for spring crops in Western European temperate areas to determine the earliest potential sowing and latest harvest dates. Subsequently, the potential sum of temperatures was calculated with the Agri4cast database to establish the potential climatic suitability. For the first time, 21 minor pulses were selected to be grown in these temperate areas and appear worthy of investigation in terms of yield potential, nutritional characteristics or best management practices.

Highlights

There is an increasing debate about the importance of plant-based proteins and the diversification of protein sources for food or feed [1]
We considered as candidate species those that can potentially grow in continental European temperate regions under oceanic influence according to the European environmental stratification proposed by Metzger et al [55]
The matrix of contingence obtained from the CorTexT platform confirmed that almost 40% of the retrieved papers were published in two Indian journals (Indian Journal of Agricultural Sciences and Indian Journal of Agronomy) and more than 40% on Phaseolus vulgaris

Summary

Introduction

There is an increasing debate about the importance of plant-based proteins and the diversification of protein sources for food or feed [1]. Plant-based proteins originate in several botanical families but are mainly concentrated in legumes. Despite the importance of grain legume, their production and consumption are declining worldwide [2,3], whereas the acreage dedicated to soybean is continuously increasing due to the intensification of livestock production [3]. Worldwide grain legumes production increased by 15% between 2016 and 2017 This increase in production occurred in each continent, except America where production remained stable. This increase was mainly due to the largest producers, North

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