- For Faba beans, days to maturity are about five days longer than most varieties of wheat.
- In the 2024 MB Pulse and Soybean Variety Guide all Faba beans tested were low vicine/Convicine.
- For the Coloured Flower (Tannin) varieties, Fabelle is the check variety and it has 111 days to maturity. The earliest maturing was Dosis at 103 days to maturity, and Futura was the longest at 112 days to maturity.
- For the White Flower (Zero Tannin) varieties, the check was DL Nevado with 107 days to maturity. The earliest was Juno at 106 days to maturity, and the latest was CDC 1142 at 114 days to maturity.
- Days to maturity depend on moisture conditions.
2. Faba beans can grow to a height of one to two metres tall and have a strong hollow stem that allows them to stand upright. The pods typically begin quite high up the plant.
Faba beans will remain standing through most adverse fall weather while retaining quality.
3. Pods are long and green, growing up to 10 cm (4 inches) long, 1 to 2 cm (0.4 to 0.8 inches) wide, and contain two to eight seeds per pod. Pods turn brown or black as they mature and seeds turn tan to brown to grey. Pods are not formed from every flower on the plant. Only approximately one quarter of the flowers produced will form pods. A faba bean can be both cross and self-pollinated. If pollination does not occur on a particular flower, it will not form a pod (Duc, 1997). Abiotic factors – adequate soil, nutrition, light, and water also influence pod fill (Patrick and Stoddard, 2010). (Source: Alberta Faba Bean Producers Manual)
4. As the crop matures, the lower leaves darken and drop off, and pods turn black and dry starting from the bottom to the top of the plant.
5. Swathing is not a good idea because faba beans are difficult to pick up and do not dry down well, following a rain if in a swath.
6. Do not plan to straight-cut faba beans without desiccation. Straight-cutting faba beans that have not been chemically dried down and left standing until total field maturity will most likely suffer significant pod shattering losses.
7. Always talk to your buyer prior to making a desiccation product decision. Make yourself aware of the pre harvest intervals and maximum residue levels (MRLs) of the desiccation product you decide on.
8. The goal of desiccants is to make sure the crop is dry and goes through the combine efficiently. Spraying too early can decrease yield and seed size while spraying too late, especially after a frost, can greatly delay the dry down of the faba beans.
9. Desiccation is best to begin when:
- at least 80% of the field has reached R8 (full maturity)
- seeds have dried down to 30% moisture, in the least mature parts of the field
- stems are green to tan to brown
- 80% of the pods are yellow to brown
- the bottom one-third of the pods have completely turned with seeds that have changed colour and are hard
- middle pods have seeds that show colour change and are hard to split
- top pods contain seeds that are firm and can split cleanly in two halves without juice squirting, the top immature pods may still be green
- 80-90% of the leaves have dropped (Faba beans start to lose their leaves from the bottom up)
- there are leaves left mainly at the top of the plant
- the seeds in the top pods of the plant are full size
- the hilum (the scar or crease on the seed) on the seeds inside the pods found at the top of the plant, are the same colour as the entire seed that is found in the mature pods at the bottom of the plant
10. The hilum colour change in tannin variety faba beans, typically for food markets, is from a greenish colour to black. When top pod seeds and bottom pod seed hilum colour is similar (changed to a black in colour), it indicates the top seeds have fully matured.
Low tannin varieties make it more difficult to notice the change in hilum colour. When the hilum on seeds from the bottom of the plant and from the top of the plant, on the main stem, have both changed from green to light tan in colour, this indicates the seeds have fully matured.
11. Remember staging is tricky. Faba beans tend to be very variable in their staging! As harvest approaches, some plants will be completely turned and some will have more green pods. Ensuring the seeds at the top of the plant have matured fully will prevent reduced seed size and ensure you achieve your full yield potential. In most cases, it is better to err on the later side than to spray too early.
12. Diquat has a much faster dry down period while glyphosate is for weed control. Do not delay desiccation beyond the early part of September and use high water volumes for application.
13. Around 7-10 days after desiccation, faba beans should be ready to be direct harvested, aiming for 18-20% seed moisture to reduce seed damage.
14. Combine settings for faba beans are similar to peas.
Starting points for combine settings:
Rotor combine:
Rotor 400-500, Concaves 12-18, Fan 900-1100, Presieves 5-7, upper sieves 18-24, lower sieves 28-22.
Conventional walker combines:
Cylinder 400-600, Concaves 15-35mm, Fan 900-1100 and adjust your sieves according to faba bean seed size.
Check your return elevator and adjust according to amount of product coming back over the cylinder.
15. A flex header is not crucial for direct harvesting due to high pod clearance.
16. Closer to harvest, focus on lower pods where the majority of production comes from, instead of waiting too long for top pods to ripen.
A faba bean crop can shatter as more pods are allowed to mature to the black stage or left standing until complete drydown; this is especially true if the crop is affected by drought or wind.
- Harvesting too early will result in immature seeds.
- Harvesting too late when the pods are dry and brittle may result in shatter losses and will increase the risk of poorer quality seed due to adverse weather.
17. The decision of when to start the harvest process will depend on:
- crop maturity
- seed moisture content
- presence of weed growth
- weather patterns
- marketing considerations
Also keep an eye on harvest loss. With a seed weight of 450 g/1000 seeds:
approximately 1 ½ seeds/ft2 left behind equates to 1 bu/ac of yield loss.
18. Combining in the early morning may reduce seed damage if the moisture content is lower than 18–20%. Combines should be set with maximum concave clearance, high fan speed, and reduced cylinder or rotor speed (300–400 rpm). Combine unloading augers and transfer augers should be operated at low speeds to avoid splitting. The seed coat of faba beans is tougher than peas, but care should still be taken to handle them gently to prevent mechanical damage. To reduce seed coat cracking, minimize drop distances when moving faba bean seed.
19. Aeration following harvest is used to bring the faba beans down to safe storage level at 16% seed moisture content . It is important to monitor inside the grain bin often after filling because faba beans often respire or sweat in storage.
20. Aerating faba beans can be a challenge if the faba beans are higher than 20% moisture, and when air temperatures have cooled and/or humidity is high. Attempts to aerate late harvested faba beans can result in condensation freezing to occur on aeration fans.
21. Faba bean seed, of varieties that contain tannins, will darken over time and should not be stored for two summers.
22. Bushel weight is 60 pounds for faba beans.
23. One of the benefits from growing a faba bean crop is the positive effect of faba bean residue in the soil. Faba bean straw contains nutrients, which once broken down by the soil microbes, can be made available to the following year’s crops.
Improved soil structure, tilth and recycled nitrogen for succeeding crops are all benefits of faba bean straw incorporation.
Speaking of straw:
- Dry faba bean straw breaks up and pulverizes quite readily when combined.
- Straw that is slightly green or tough will remain almost whole going through the combine.
- A good straw chopper and chaff spreader will cut and spread the straw and chaff sufficiently so that tillage or direct seeding is not a problem.
- Tough straw will wrap around the chopper drum if the straw chopper knives are dull and worn.