This article appeared in the Winter 2016 issue of Pulse Crop News.

One of the pillars of best management practices for every crop is selecting a variety that is suited to your particular growing environment. The Alberta Pulse Growers has funded regional variety trials across the province to ensure that our growers have current yield, standability and disease resistance information relevant to their own farms.

This research is funded jointly through Science Cluster 2.0 and the Growing Forward program, which allows Alberta growers to leverage their investment into this program with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) funding.

Execution of these trials is coordinated by Alberta Agriculture and Forestry and the success of the program has been built by the cooperation of stakeholders, provincial and federal research collaborators, Applied Research Associations and the solid technical teams with a commitment to ensuring high quality data.

Each year protocols for seeding, weed, insect and disease management, pre-harvest and harvest management are reviewed and standardized to ensure consistency of results. Breeders submit their varieties to be tested in the regional trials which allows comparison with a standard check variety, which is generally the most widely used of each of the pulse types. The yields reported (kg/ha) of the check varieties are the average small plot yield. For estimated yields on a field scale a correction factor of 0.75 should be used.

Questions about these charts or general pulse agronomy? Email Nevin Rosaasen (nrosaasen@pulse.ab.ca) or Jenn Walker (jwalker@pulse.ab.ca) or talk to us on Twitter @APGResearch and @APGExtension.