posted 5 days ago
This is a reprint from my Patreon article.
I’ve grown them and my one issue was they fell over so you may need to support them. The stems looked thick enough but the pods are so heavy the plants tend to lean. I like the string method. Run a rope over the beans in line with the row then stake a string at the base and wrap it around the stalk once the pods start to form and tie it at the top.
The yield is excellent for beans at 2,000 to 3,000 pounds an acre. What really blew my mine is as whole fresh ponds as animal fodder the yield is 6,000 to 10,000 pounds an acre re. They say in moderation for pigs, say 10% of diet, but the are fine for cows, sheep and goats. They are 26% to 30% protein and 55% to 60% carbohydrates. They do contain anti nutrients but these are very low in the pods so one option is to shell them for the beans and feed the shells to cattle, sheep and goats and as a treat to pigs. You are still getting 4,000 to 8,000 pounds of animal fodder after removing the beans. You can feed the whole bean to cows but I’ll recommend something that is against the religion of. Odeon farmer, cook the beans. Hes I know you’ll go to hell for doing anything other than grinding animal feed but there are three things you should cook before feeding to animals, potatoes, eggs and beans that are either mildly toxic or have anti nutrients. Raw potatoes have the anti nutrient issue and I recommend having a fall bonfire and toss in the potatoes onto the hot coals for an hour the. Fish them out with a rake for pigs. It’s fun and dramatically increases the food value. With eggs I recommend making pig and chicken omelette spent. You can add things like stinging nettles and other fodder items into massive omelets or just drizzle the mix into boiling water and scoop the cooked egg out. With eggs it frees up the protein. With beans like potatoes cooking breaks down the anti nutrients. You can even pan roast the. For a crunchy treat. Once they are pan roasted they’ll keep a long time. Baking it boiling them does the same. Farmers used to do things like this like pig slop but somewhere along the line farming became an industry and the goal is keep it simple stupid which is stupid. A few 3xtra steps dramatically increases the quality of the feed like fermenting grains. It takes an extra day or two but it’s commonplace on organic farms but rare on industrial farms.
Silage is one of the few things fermented in industrial farming. This does apply to fave beans as well. Her’s something common in Europe and rarely done in the US, feed animals the entire plant! Most animals will eat the. Stalk and all. I still recommend harvesting the beans and pods separately but the entire plant, pods and all can be used in silage. I say the beans are too valuable to be used in silage and the pods are better fresh. The point is don’t compost the stalks, feed them green to animals or if you do corn silage toss in the fave bean stalks as well.
Hope this is some useful I formation so you can make use of this miracle, nitrogen fixing plant. FYI, if that wasn’t enough fava beans produce dopamine in the brain. The L-DOPA in fava beans converts to dopamine in the brain and is as effective as commercial drugs. They fight depression and give a positive mood in winter months. They really are a forgotten miracle of nature. A word of warning, some people from the Mediterranean area including North Africa have a mutation that can cause a severe blood issue but this mutation only. Exists in that region. My people are Scot, Irish, Norse so it’s not an issue like most of the UK, it’s why the bean is still popular there.
