Legume seed inoculation prior to sowing is a well-known practice in agriculture. Nitrogen fixation, due to the symbiotic relationship between legumes and rhizobia, improves the productivity of legumes. Rhizobia strain specificity can be observed very often, leading to differences in the total protein content. In this study two faba bean cultivars (‘Karmazyn’ and ‘Bartek’) and five pea cultivars (‘Retrija’, ‘Zaiga’, ‘Lāsma’, ‘Vitra’ and ‘Bartek’) were tested using various rhizobia strains. In addition, strain effectivity was observed in four different soil types. Overall, the protein content increase was observed after seed inoculation with Rhizobium sp. Rhizobia strain and plant cultivar interaction specification was observed. Plant cultivar appeared to have a decisive role in the formation of protein content when inoculated with Rhizobium sp. From these pilot experiments, it can be concluded that, when choosing Rhizobium sp. strains for legume inoculation, soil type also should be considered. Rhizobia has the potential to be used as a commercial preparation intended for increasing legume protein content, alongside with increased legume yield; however, different rhizobia strains should be mixed together to achieve the optimal result.

Faba beans (Vicia faba L.) are an excellent protein source and should be more present in human diet, but due to their long cooking time, they are rarely used. So, in order to increase the accessibility of faba beans (Vicia faba L.), experiments were carried out to obtain new food products. Extrusion-cooking was chosen as the potential thermal cooking process and two different products were obtained. One was made exclusively from faba bean (Vicia faba L.) flour, while the second one was produced with a 50% addition of wheat flour to bean flour. Protein content, size, volume mass, pH and starch content for obtained products were analysed in order to characterise the products, as well as to see the differences from non-extruded faba beans (Vicia faba L.) and obtained samples. The experiments were carried out using faba beans (Vicia faba L.) obtained at Ltd. “Pure Horticultural Research Centre”. They were milled at Ltd. “Grauda spēks” and extruded with a twin screw extruder at Ltd. “Milzu”. The experiments showed that the extrusion process had decreased the protein content by 9%, but the starch content had risen by 13% with the addition of wheat flour. But, for sample, without added wheat flour differences were not significant. No significant size differences were observed in the obtained samples and pH values had no significant differences between extruded samples.