With powdery mildew on the ropes, this pea breeder has turned his attention to other disease issues as well as harvestability.

Five or 10 years ago, powdery mildew was giving Canadian field pea growers big problems. The disease, in a bad year, could take down a significant portion of the crop’s yield and quality.

Look at powdery mildew today. In D.J. Bing’s view, it’s a great example of the good things that can happen when pulse scientists have the resources to work on an agronomic issue.

“Powdery mildew was a challenge in the past,” said Bing, Pulse Breeder with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada based in Lacombe. “The variety registration process now requires every pea variety here to be resistant to powdery mildew. It’s the end for powdery mildew because we now have developed this resistance.”

Developing a new pea variety can easily take 10 or more years. Bing himself has been working on pea variety development since 1999 and has released more than 20 quality field pea varieties to Canadian pulse producers. That includes well-known names such as Agassiz, Argus, AAC Peace River, AAC Ardill and AAC Lacombe.

Disease resistance, standability key breeding targets

If new pea variety development takes time, it’s no less true that it costs money. In 2013, Growing Forward 2 stepped up with a five-year investment to enable Bing to continue his work. His program played a key role in defeating powdery mildew. Next, he wants to develop peas that are resistant to ascochyta and root rot.

“For ascochyta disease, the challenge is to get resistance,” Bing said. “There is no strong genetic resistance in the current varieties and in the germplasm pool.”

The issues of disease management and harvestability are related in peas. If a crop lies down, it can be a nightmare to harvest. This also makes it easier for disease to take hold. If the crop stands tall, on the other hand, airflow within and between plants can reduce disease levels.

“We have been making slow but steady improvement in resistance to ascochyta and better standability,” Bing said.

With his Growing Forward 2 funding about to end, Bing is looking to continue his pea variety development work. After 18 years, with numerous pea variety registrations from the AAFC field pea breeding program, he sees continued progress for Alberta’s most important pulse crop.

“This has been a major program for disease resistance, standability and yield, and we hope to continue it,” Bing said. “Every so often you reach a kind of plateau. It takes time to break the plateau and push through it.”

Project at a glance

Project title:                Development of field pea varieties with improved disease resistance and harvestability

Project lead:                D.J. Bing, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada

Total value of project: $1,192,431

Start date:                   2013

Completion date:        2017

 

 

 

This plant breeder wants growers to have it all: high-yielding varieties with top agronomic performance, enhanced protein levels and better protein quality.

Would you give up a few bushels of yield to get higher-protein peas? Not likely. Would pulse processors sacrifice some valuable protein so growers could have higher yields? Doubt it.

The best of both worlds would be to have high-yielding pea varieties that also have enhanced protein levels.

Traditionally in pea breeding, however, getting more of something you want meant accepting less of something else. That’s changing, and pulse growers, processors and consumers all stand to benefit.

This goal has been advanced by D.J. Bing in recent years with indirect funding support from Growing Forward 2.

“We initiated this study 16 or 17 years ago, and have been using traditional breeding techniques,” said Bing, Lacombe-based Pulse Breeder with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.

Higher protein, with no compromises

Commercial field pea varieties in Canada have an average protein level of roughly 23%. In Bing’s previous work, he identified pea germplasm with around 30% protein. In effect, the protein level in this germplasm is one-third higher than the varieties growers plant today. If Bing could capture this additional protein without sacrificing yield, it would be a huge leap forward for Canadian pea production and a difference-maker for Canada in the global pulse trade.

Before, when Bing boosted protein levels, yield declined and standability, maturity and seed size (bigger being better) tended to suffer as well.

“The reason for the low yield came from two factors,” Bing explained. “One, the germplasm with high levels of protein had poor agronomic traits; and two, protein and starch can work against each other. As you get higher yield you can have more starch but less protein.”

The best breeding lines Bing has developed are P0540-41 and P0540-91, two lines with approximately 28% protein. The downside is that these lines have only 75% of the yield of the best pea cultivars grown today. At present, farmers aren’t rewarded in premium pricing for quality product. This means that yield of high protein varieties must be on par with others in order to be competitive with other commonly grown varieties.

Bing hopes to use P0540-41, P0540-91 and other breeding materials he has developed as a springboard to give growers high-yielding, high-protein pea varieties with first-class agronomic performance.

Looking forward, he proposes to use molecular genetic techniques to improve the effectiveness of improving protein content and protein quality. This would build on breeding materials developed in previous years using traditional breeding.

Overall, Bing believes that pea protein and yields are both heading in the right direction.

“In a breeding program, there two things you try to balance,” Bing said. “You want to keep new varieties coming to market. You also want to carefully develop a germplasm supply and expand it with new genes and new traits. That way, when you need it, you have it.”

Project at a glance

Project title:                Development of field pea cultivars with improved protein content and molecular markers for marker-assisted selection

Project lead:                D.J. Bing, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada

Total value of project: $460,200

Start date:                   2013

Completion date:        2017

 

 

 

With soybeans starting to take acres away from common beans, this scientist has been working to improve beans’ resilience in the face of cold and drought.

If you’re an Alberta farmer who’s been kicking the tires on soybeans, Kirstin Bett urges you to consider all the evidence before you jump in. A Professor of Plant Breeding and Genetics at the University of Saskatchewan, she believes that dry (or common) beans are a better choice on many levels.

“My take on soybeans is that you’re not going to make a lot of money on soybeans because it costs a lot to grow them,” Bett said. “It is high-risk and not well adapted here. Common beans are better adapted to areas like Saskatchewan and the higher latitude parts of Alberta.  In some areas where you can’t grow soybeans, you can grow beans. We also have germplasm of bean that can grow farther north than soy.”

That’s not to say that growing dry beans is a walk in the park. As Bett explains, beans can be badly damaged by frosts and need more moisture than is sometimes available.

Since 2002, Bett has been working to make dry beans more tolerant of stresses caused by frost and drought. Between 2013 and 2015, this work was partially supported by Alberta Pulse Growers.

Genetics from tepary bean

Bett identified tepary bean – widely grown in the southwestern U.S. and Mexico – as a potential source of drought- and cold-tolerant genetics.

“Tepary beans actually prefer dry conditions to being well-watered,” Bett said. “Over the past 15 years, we have made interspecies hybrids bringing in these tolerances.”

In 2015, Ph.D. student Jodi Souter conducted plot trails in Puerto Rico involving tepary beans, varieties of common bean grown on the Prairies and Bett’s common lines with added tepary traits. The crosses weren’t as drought-tolerant as the teparies but some performed better under dry conditions than the regular common bean.

Bett continues to work on cold tolerance of common bean, seeking to develop lines that germinate well in colder soils in the spring and better resist frost in the spring or fall. This could allow growers to plant their common beans earlier, extending the growing season and adding yield in the process.

Common bean varieties that hold up better against stressful conditions should also help growers deal with a changing climate.

“I would argue that we will have a lot more climate variability, not only drought,” Bett said. “The more stress-resilient your crop is, the better off it’ll be.”

Is there a soybean crop in your future? Maybe so, but by working to develop lines that are more drought- and cold-tolerant, Bett is strengthening the case for growing common bean.

“I ask, why would we try to compete with the U.S. on soybeans?” she said. “Why not grow a high-value bean when we can?”

Project at a glance

Project title:                Deployment of Tepary Bean Genetics to improve stress tolerance in Common Bean

Project lead:                Kirstin Bett, University of Saskatchewan

Total value of project: $20,000

Start date:                   2013

Completion date:        2015

 

 

 

Manjula Bandara’s evaluation of promising soybean lines is helping southern Alberta producers consider this new crop with the best possible set of information.

How much room is there to increase soybean acreage in this province? Consider that in 2016, Manitoba grew 1.6 million acres of soybeans, with Saskatchewan contributing 240,000 acres. Last year, Alberta farmers grew 15,000 acres of soybeans.

On the face of it, then, Alberta seems to have plenty of runway for more soybeans. In practice, however, Manjula Bandara believes the crop could be a tough sell in the region south of Highway 1 where it’s best suited.

“We have so many cropping options in southern Alberta today,” said Bandara, Brooks-based Pulse and Special Crop Research Scientist with Alberta Agriculture and Forestry (AF). “Beyond the traditional crops, there’s now more corn, perennial forage crops like alfalfa, sugar beet, potatoes as well as dry beans. So when we have the option to introduce a new crop into southern Alberta’s irrigated areas, it has to be competitive.”

As AF Economist Ron Gietz pencils out the costs and returns of soybeans in southern Alberta, he finds the proposition interesting but not necessarily compelling, yet. Assuming soybeans sell for around their long-term price of $9 per bushel, a grower would need to produce a 60 bu./ac. crop to earn a place in a crop rotation.

Yields approach economic competitiveness

Over the past four years, Bandara has been working on a project that could tip the balance in soybeans’ favour. With funding support from the Alberta Funding Consortium including Alberta Pulse Growers, he’s been evaluating soybean varieties under southern Alberta growing conditions. This is part of a longer-term involvement with soybean that, for Bandara, began in 2004.

“Based on the varieties that are available, not a lot of people will be growing soybeans north of Highway 1,” he said. “Our goal is to evaluate soybean varieties south of Highway 1, in order to minimize the risk for growers.”

Soybean breeders send their lines to Bandara, who evaluates them based on agronomic criteria such as seeding date, density and spacing, as well as the use of nitrogen. At any one time, he’d like to see 16 to 18 promising lines in his program.

Overall, Bandara sees soybean yields approaching a threshold where southern Alberta farmers will start to get interested. Yields in recent years’ evaluations have ranged from 35 bu./ac. to 60 bu./ac., with the occasional spike north of 70 bu./ac.

Bandara suggests that, for areas with 2,300 to 2,400 heat units available, and 115 to 121 days of growing season, soybeans can be competitive with other high-value southern Alberta crops. One wild card is the incidence of disease under irrigation.

After 12 years evaluating soybeans in southern Alberta, Manjula Bandara isn’t predicting explosive acreage growth to the levels seen on the eastern Prairies. Still, if the right factors align, there’s a good chance Alberta will see more soybeans in the coming years.

“That is our hope,” Bandara said, “but it all depends on the price and how crushing capacity unfolds. As long as the price is reasonable, a moderate increase can be expected.”

 

Project at a glance

Project title:                Soybean genotype study

Project lead:                Manjula Bandara, Alberta Agriculture and Forestry

Total value of project:

Start date:                   2013

Completion date:        2017

 

 

Alberta’s growth to 500,000 acres of lentils is one of the big stories of the past decade. Rising market demand and many years of plant breeding dedication helped make it possible.

From just 8,000 acres in 1999, Alberta farmers grew half a million acres of red lentils in 2015. If market conditions are right, there’s every reason to believe that acres of red lentils – long an agronomic stand-by in Saskatchewan – can continue to move forward here.

For an inside view of how red lentils went from obscurity to rising prominence, the scientist to talk to is Manjula Bandara. The Brooks-based Pulse and Special Crop Research Scientist with Alberta Agriculture and Forestry has been a central figure in red lentil crop improvement in Alberta since 1999.

Bandara’s lentil crop improvement project has often collaborated with the world-renowned and long-standing University of Saskatchewan lentil breeding program led by Bert Vandenberg. This relationship has been one of the drivers of the growth of lentils in Alberta. Another has been the availability of funding from producer and government sources. Alberta Pulse Growers has been a long-time supporter of Bandara’s work, specifically between 2001 and 2017.

Variety development under Alberta conditions

“Before 2001, Alberta Agriculture had been evaluating lentil cultivars that were F7s or F8s, as part of the co-op trials,” said Bandara. “Being so advanced, those lines weren’t really well-adapted to Alberta.”

His innovation was to obtain lines much earlier in the development cycle, such as F4s, and screen them for flowering, crop standability, crop height, disease resistance, seed colour and seed yield. This work was performed at Alberta Agriculture and Forestry sites at Brooks and Bow Island. After two or more years in Co-op trials, superior lentil lines are submitted for the variety registration process with CFIA.

Still, what Bandara sees as the biggest leap forward for red lentils in Alberta came in 2003.

“When Clearfield lentils came out, that was very significant,” he said. “Weed control is the number-one factor for lentil production, because lentils are poor competitors with weeds.  With the introduction of Clearfield lentils, acreage got a real boost and, along with international demand, helped get us to where we are today.”

With lentil acres in Alberta roughly 50 times higher than when he started, Manjula Bandara is proud of the foundational work that he and many others have done. Looking forward, he sees two new areas for improvement. The first is to ensure that gains in weed control endure, as reliance on Group 2 herbicides risks the development of resistance in the longer term. The second issue is managing emerging lentil diseases, such as root rot and other foliar diseases.

“We need to have multiple herbicide resistances, not just to Group 2,” Bandara said. “Over the next five years, we were hoping to collaborate with the University of Saskatchewan to bring Group 5 and Group 14 resistances into the crop improvement program, but we do not have the funding to continue the lentil crop improvement program.”

 

Project at a glance

Project title:                Developing red lentil cultivars for Alberta and analyzing the newest red lentil cultivars for the starch profile to attract new lentil markets

Project lead:                Manjula Bandara, Alberta Agriculture and Forestry

Total value of project: $661,060

Start date:                   2012

Completion date:        2017

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dry bean research keeps Alberta and Canada at the forefront

From standability to early maturity and canning quality, the past five years have seen significant progress.

Dry bean production in southern Alberta has given growers a cropping option that’s good for the soil, balances a crop rotation and can deliver a solid return on investment.

Parthiba Balasubramanian notes that dry bean stands out from other Alberta crops in several ways.

“Dry bean is used about 98% of the time for food,” said Balasubramanian, Dry Bean Breeder with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) in Lethbridge. “Therefore, quality is extremely important. If you grow peas and get an early frost, it can be downgraded to feed. With dry bean, you don’t always have that opportunity.”

Dry bean in Alberta is typically grown under irrigation, which can play into the hands of plant diseases. Yields must be high for dry bean to be economically competitive with other high-value crops under irrigation. Beans must also be visually appealing, as roughly 70% of production goes for export. A large portion of domestic dry bean consumption is canned. Here again, bean appearance matters.

Over the past 20 years, Balasubramanian has developed or co-developed many new dry bean varieties for Western Canada. Since 2013, with funding from Growing Forward 2, he’s been working on several fronts to make dry bean production sustainable and profitable.

Disease avoidance

One focus of Balasubramanian’s work has been developing greater white mould disease resistance in the different dry bean classes. Another way to manage white mould disease is to avoid it, and better standability can make a difference. Good air movement through the plant can help inhibit disease.

Dry bean varieties that mature earlier are another priority for Balasubramanian. He’s targeting 95 to 100 days to mature, as early maturity ensures good seed quality prior to a first fall frost.

Domestically, the canning market is key to dry bean marketing. Since 2011, Balasubramanian’s program has led the canning and cooking quality studies in Canada. Experimental bean lines in the Registration Trials of Ontario and the three prairie provinces are evaluated on how well they hold up to processing and preparation. Alberta’s involvement in this collaboration has been financially supported by AAFC and Alberta Pulse Growers. The overall project is also supported by the Ontario Bean Growers.

When dry bean varieties mature earlier, stand better, harvest easier and work better for consumers, it makes growing the crop an even better option for southern Alberta growers. To Balasubramanian, this progress plus rising consumer awareness of beans’ health benefits puts dry beans in Alberta in a strong position.

“There’s been a great increase in awareness due to 2016 International Year of Pulses,” said Balasubramanian. “That has raised the profile of pulse crops, including dry bean.”

 

Project at a glance

 

Project title:                Dry bean improvement for sustainable production in Canada

Project lead:                Parthiba Balasubramanian, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada

Total value of project: $4,455,100

Start date:                   2013

Completion date:        2017

 

 

 

This plant breeder wants growers to have it all: high-yielding varieties with top agronomic performance, enhanced protein levels and better protein quality.

Would you give up a few bushels of yield to get higher-protein peas? Not likely. Would pulse processors sacrifice some valuable protein so growers could have higher yields? Doubt it.

The best of both worlds would be to have high-yielding pea varieties that also have enhanced protein levels.

Traditionally in pea breeding, however, getting more of something you want meant accepting less of something else. That’s changing, and pulse growers, processors and consumers all stand to benefit.

This goal has been advanced by D.J. Bing in recent years with indirect funding support from Growing Forward 2.

“We initiated this study 16 or 17 years ago, and have been using traditional breeding techniques,” said Bing, Lacombe-based Pulse Breeder with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.

Higher protein, with no compromises

Commercial field pea varieties in Canada have an average protein level of roughly 23%. In Bing’s previous work, he identified pea germplasm with around 30% protein. In effect, the protein level in this germplasm is one-third higher than the varieties growers plant today. If Bing could capture this additional protein without sacrificing yield, it would be a huge leap forward for Canadian pea production and a difference-maker for Canada in the global pulse trade.

Before, when Bing boosted protein levels, yield declined and standability, maturity and seed size (bigger being better) tended to suffer as well.

“The reason for the low yield came from two factors,” Bing explained. “One, the germplasm with high levels of protein had poor agronomic traits; and two, protein and starch can work against each other. As you get higher yield you can have more starch but less protein.”

The best breeding lines Bing has developed are P0540-41 and P0540-91, two lines with approximately 28% protein. The downside is that these lines have only 75% of the yield of the best pea cultivars grown today. At present, farmers aren’t rewarded in premium pricing for quality product. This means that yield of high protein varieties must be on par with others in order to be competitive with other commonly grown varieties.

Bing hopes to use P0540-41, P0540-91 and other breeding materials he has developed as a springboard to give growers high-yielding, high-protein pea varieties with first-class agronomic performance.

Looking forward, he proposes to use molecular genetic techniques to improve the effectiveness of improving protein content and protein quality. This would build on breeding materials developed in previous years using traditional breeding.

Overall, Bing believes that pea protein and yields are both heading in the right direction.

“In a breeding program, there two things you try to balance,” Bing said. “You want to keep new varieties coming to market. You also want to carefully develop a germplasm supply and expand it with new genes and new traits. That way, when you need it, you have it.”

From standability to early maturity and canning quality, the past five years have seen significant progress.

Dry bean production in southern Alberta has given growers a cropping option that’s good for the soil, balances a crop rotation and can deliver a solid return on investment.

Parthiba Balasubramanian notes that dry bean stands out from other Alberta crops in several ways.

“Dry bean is used about 98% of the time for food,” said Balasubramanian, Dry Bean Breeder with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) in Lethbridge. “Therefore, quality is extremely important. If you grow peas and get an early frost, it can be downgraded to feed. With dry bean, you don’t always have that opportunity.”

Dry bean in Alberta is typically grown under irrigation, which can play into the hands of plant diseases. Yields must be high for dry bean to be economically competitive with other high-value crops under irrigation. Beans must also be visually appealing, as roughly 70% of production goes for export. A large portion of domestic dry bean consumption is canned. Here again, bean appearance matters.

Over the past 20 years, Balasubramanian has developed or co-developed many new dry bean varieties for Western Canada. Since 2013, with funding from Growing Forward 2, he’s been working on several fronts to make dry bean production sustainable and profitable.

Disease avoidance

One focus of Balasubramanian’s work has been developing greater white mould disease resistance in the different dry bean classes. Another way to manage white mould disease is to avoid it, and better standability can make a difference. Good air movement through the plant can help inhibit disease.

Dry bean varieties that mature earlier are another priority for Balasubramanian. He’s targeting 95 to 100 days to mature, as early maturity ensures good seed quality prior to a first fall frost.

Domestically, the canning market is key to dry bean marketing. Since 2011, Balasubramanian’s program has led the canning and cooking quality studies in Canada. Experimental bean lines in the Registration Trials of Ontario and the three prairie provinces are evaluated on how well they hold up to processing and preparation. Alberta’s involvement in this collaboration has been financially supported by AAFC and Alberta Pulse Growers. The overall project is also supported by the Ontario Bean Growers.

When dry bean varieties mature earlier, stand better, harvest easier and work better for consumers, it makes growing the crop an even better option for southern Alberta growers. To Balasubramanian, this progress plus rising consumer awareness of beans’ health benefits puts dry beans in Alberta in a strong position.

“There’s been a great increase in awareness due to 2016 International Year of Pulses,” said Balasubramanian. “That has raised the profile of pulse crops, including dry bean.”