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Altering root development for drought tolerance in pea field through a non-transgenic approach

albertapulse on June 29, 2020

The hunt is on for ways to improve pulse crops without waiting for traditional breeding and without crossing the transgenic threshold. Here’s one scientist’s vision.

You want to plant pea varieties that withstand drought better than current varieties? Given today’s climate uncertainties, these could be valuable tools to have.

As Ravinder Goyal explains, traditional plant breeding could have a role to play, but it also brings conditions.

“If you look at the germplasm, there are some cultivars that are better-performing than the others in terms of drought, “ said Goyal, Lacombe-based Research Scientist with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. “The problem is, it’s a very long process – 12 or 13 years – to transfer a trait of interest through traditional breeding.”

What’s more, such cultivars would tend to outperform other cultivars only during the stress period. In other words, they’ll yield better than standard varieties if there’s a drought. If there’s no drought, they won’t.

Transgenic breeding tools could move the desired trait into new varieties far quicker than traditional breeding. The position of the pulse industry and growers, however, is that they do not want genetically modified crops. If traditional breeding takes too long (given today’s dynamic climate) and genetic modification is off the table (by industry consensus), does that mean a scientist like Goyal is out of options?

Not by a long shot. In the Spring of 2019, he began a three-year project that aims to improve water use efficiency in field pea in an entirely different way.

Modify the rhizomes, not the plant

Between traditional plant breeding on one hand, and genetic modification on the other, plant scientists have access to a range of new gene-editing tools. One such technology is CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats). These tools can be used as a kind of bridge between traditional and transgenic techniques. That’s Goyal’s idea for drought tolerance and field pea.

“I proposed, let’s not modify the crop; let’s modify the rhizomes that sit in the roots, in the nodules,” he said. “We can express what we want through the rhizomes – for example, increased drought tolerance – without adding foreign DNA to the crop.”

That’s a big idea for field peas alone. Now consider that the same approach could in concept work for other pulse crops and for soybeans. For the next three years, however, Goyal’s focus is field peas.

“Opening a line of communication between the rhizobium and the host is not easy,” he said. “It’s quite a challenging process, but there is so much value down the road if you succeed that it’s worth trying.”

Sometimes a constraint doesn’t end the process of discovery. It merely compels a creative thinker to seek another way. With neither traditional nor transgenic breeding strategies being appropriate, Goyal is finding a third way forward on drought tolerance of pulses.

“This past year was very wet, but we’ve seen dry conditions in recent years as well, it’s unpredictable,” he said. “This way we can have something in our hands if water is scarce.”

Development of a pulse protein-based pet food kibble through lab and pilot scale studies

albertapulse on January 3, 2019

A made-in-Alberta idea for protein-optimized pet food is showing significant promise and could one day open up a massive new market for pulse growers.

Today’s pet owners are taking more and more care with the diets of their dogs and cats. Our province’s pulse crops could be the perfect feedstock for a new generation of pet foods.

Compared to the meat ingredients traditionally used in pet food, pulses have many qualities that are attractive to pet food manufacturers. Dry pulses are far easier to handle, have a competitive cost per tonne, are less perishable and are an excellent source of protein.

“In another investigation, we’re looking at the characterization of protein in faba beans,” said Thava Vasanthan, a Professor in Agricultural Food and Nutritional Science at the University of Alberta. “Faba bean is an expanding crop in Western Canada and has a protein advantage over field peas.”

The research Vasanthan mentions is a project led by U of A colleague Feral Temelli – see the story on page X – investigating efficient ways to fractionate faba bean for functional food uses. While protein in faba bean is typically around 26%, Temelli’s project investigated removing the outer layers of the faba bean where most of its protein resides, resulting in a faba bean fraction that’s up to 42% protein. This super-ingredient is sure to get the attention of pet food makers.

Digestibility and taste: two important factors

Over the next two years of this three-year research project, Vasanthan and co-investigator University of Alberta Professor Ruurd Zijlstra will optimize the pet food’s protein concentration, manufacture test lines and perform taste trials of the food with dogs.

To ensure optimum digestibility of the pulse protein, Vasanthan and Zijlstra have been testing different enzymes that aid in canine digestion, including phytase and phenolic acid esterase. They’ve found that when these enzymes work in tandem, there’s a significant improvement in the protein’s digestibility.

“We digested the faba bean protein in the presence of these enzymes and took the digestibility from 70% or 80% to start, up to 86%,” he said. “This is an important advantage in pet food where high digestibility of the protein is expected.”

To create the pet food kibble, Vasanthan and Zijlstra will use the state-of-the-art food manufacturing facilities at the new University of Alberta Agri-Food Discovery Place. Sensory testing with dogs will occur late in 2019 under the watchful eye of pet food nutritionist Professor Kate Shoveller from the University of Guelph.

This multi-faceted collaborative research is not only poised to make a difference to the nutrition and economics of pet food manufacturing. It’s also helping to add depth to the academic and technical expertise of Albertans in a growing area of the economy.

“The final aspect of this project is that we’re training graduate students to make them available to work in the pet food industry,” Vasanthan said. “The pet food industry is expanding fast, and they’ll need people to serve the industry.”

Glycemic control and cardiovascular disease in Type 2 diabetes

albertapulse on January 3, 2019

A comprehensive aggregation and review of available research finds that regular pulse consumption can significantly lower cholesterol.

Today in Canada, heart disease and diabetes affect millions of lives. In fact, there may be no greater health issue in Canada than the need to prevent or mitigate the damage caused by these conditions.

As John Sievenpiper sees it, however, making an impact on the lives of Canadians won’t require any kind of far-fetched medical moonshot. One important tool has been here all along: pulses.

“In reviewing the evidence, we’re seeing a clearer signal for the benefit of pulses,” said Sievenpiper, a physician and Associate Professor at the University of Toronto’s Department of Nutritional Sciences. “We’re finding that high consumers of pulses have lower cardiovascular disease and lower coronary heart disease incidences than people who are low consumers of pulses.”

Since 2015, with funding from APG and others, Sievenpiper has been looking at the effect of pulses on glycemic control, blood lipids, blood pressure and body weight by analyzing a vast array of available medical research. This included 26 separate research projects encompassing 1,000 people.

Sievenpiper searched for hard evidence that consumption of pulses can help mitigate the impact of heart disease and diabetes. He found plenty.

“Pulses are a pretty incredible food,” Sievenpiper said. “There are a number of mechanisms that relate to the composition of the pulse that would explain their ability to lower blood pressure, lower blood sugar and cholesterol. In particular, pulses have a low glycemic index, they’re a source of viscous fibre that may reduce blood lipids, the pulse plant proteins can lower cholesterol, plus they have anti-nutrients that may help lower blood sugars.”

Include more pulses in daily diet to drive benefits

Sievenpiper is currently in the process of formalizing his findings through a detailed scientific paper, but he’s already begun speaking to medical and health professionals about this project.

The headline benefit of Sievenpiper’s research is that regular pulse consumption (just ¾ cup per day) can lower LDL, the so-called ‘bad cholesterol’,  by 5%.  This benefit is readily accessible. You only need to eat one serving of pulses per day. For some Canadians, this may require a move out of their food comfort zone, but there are signs that this is starting to occur.

The 2016 United Nations International Year of Pulses was a catalyst for the Canadian pulse industry to promote pulses to Canadian consumers. Food manufacturers across North America are beginning to integrate more pulse ingredients into their products. Many consumers are placing greater emphasis on choosing plant-based foods more often.

Given the benefits to individuals’ health and the health of society, Sievenpiper sees Canada’s pulse growers playing a critically important role by continuing to produce home-grown pulses.

“As the awareness around the health benefits of pulses increases,” he said, “I think we have an opportunity to see a meaningful increase in pulses, and with it, a meaningful increase in the health of Canadians.”

Application development for the starch/protein Air Current-Assisted Particle Separation Technology (ACAPS)

albertapulse on January 3, 2019

A team of University of Alberta scientists is developing new ways to fractionate faba beans to get at their high-value components.

It’s a good time to be a pulse grower in Alberta. There’s every indication that the pulse sector will diversify beyond its long-standing domestic and global business, through the many new pulse fractionation plants being planned and built in Western Canada.

To unlock the true economic potential of Alberta’s pulse crops, efficient and cost-effective processing methods will need to be developed, tested and perfected. On the other hand, if processing methods proven to work in other crops can be adapted to pulses, why reinvent the wheel?

One example is Air Current-Assisted Particle Separation (ACAPS) technology. Developed at the University of Alberta by Thava Vasanthan, the technology fractionates cereal crops quickly and cost-effectively. Think of ACAPS as a tornado in a chamber, with air lifting the different particles and separating them through a sieve system.

Over the past two years, Feral Temelli, together with her colleague Vasanthan, has been trying to adapt ACAPS for use in faba beans.

“The previous work focused on oat and barley, so there’s still work to be done for faba beans,” said Temelli, Professor of Agricultural, Life and Environmental Sciences at the University of Alberta. “We’re looking for a better understanding of how to separate and analyze the different components of the faba bean seed.”

Pearling uncovers unique composition of faba beans

Temelli found that faba beans might need some preliminary processing before being fractionated by ACAPS. She concluded that pearling could be just the thing.

With pearling – a process where an abrasive unit scrapes the outer layers off the grain – Temelli can shave off about 6% of the seed at a time. Analysis of these pearled layers showed the faba bean protein concentration was higher on the outside of the bean, while the starch concentrated more towards the centre.

“I believe this was a new finding for faba beans, so we’ve done a lot of composition analysis with these fractions,” she noted. “We also saw a tighter interaction between the fibre and the protein in the outer layer of the faba bean. In fact, the protein seems to stay together with the fibre.”

Between now and mid-2019, Temelli and her team – including one graduate student – will keep working on ACAPS optimization. They will continue analyzing the faba bean fractions and will also examine the effectiveness of water-based processes to separate-out the protein.

With Alberta farmers growing top-quality faba beans, and new fractionation capacity getting ready to roll, keeping more of the economic value of pulse crops here at home is a step in the right direction. Temelli will continue to seek out inventive ways to process pulse crops.

“We’ll be looking into better understanding the protein-fibre interaction,” Temelli said. “We’ll see if we can separate it, or maybe leaving the protein-fibre combination together gives us another new opportunity for a different enriched fraction with unique properties.”

Development of gluten-free licorice using Canadian pulses

albertapulse on January 3, 2019

This one-year project aims to make a healthier, no gluten added, longer-storing alternative to wheat-based licorice using red lentil flour.

Pulses have advantages over wheat in many foods. That’s the growing conviction of food scientists as they’ve worked to replace wheat with peas, beans, faba beans and lentils in manufactured food products. Pulse ingredients are known to be higher in protein, higher in fibre and are naturally gluten-free.

One of these pulse/wheat swaps is taking aim at the candy aisle. With funding support from APG and others, Alberta Agriculture and Forestry’s Food Processing Development Centre in Leduc is partnering with candy-maker Jean Purschke to create licorice made with pulses.

Several pulses would be good candidates. Peas and beans work well functionally, but could lose marks with some consumers for their strong ‘beany’ flavour. Project leader and FPDC Food Scientist Kevin Swallow and Product Development Technologist Olivia Thompson have been working with many of the pulse candidates. One ingredient stands out.

“Red lentil flour works great,” said Swallow. “It has a light pink colour, good functional properties and a bland, non-objectionable flavour.”

Development product shows potential

The one-year project, which began early in 2018, is building on previous work at FPDC. One issue arising from that research was a tendency of lentil-based licorice to ‘sweat’ due to being less efficient than wheat-based licorice at binding water.

By the end of March 2019, Swallow and Thompson expect to develop a final product formulation that beats the sweating issue. They will then scale the process up from benchtop to small-scale commercial quantities. Both black and cherry licorices are under development, with consumer sensory testing to provide the final validation of the project’s work.

“There are so many factors that go into it, beyond just making the licorice,” said Swallow. “Do the ingredients work well together? What’s the flavour profile? What’s the best way to extrude and dry it? All aspects that need to be optimized so that the process can be scaled up on a commercial basis.”

If you’re looking forward to seeing lentil licorice at your local farmers’ market, Swallow, Thompson and Purschke think that’s just a start. Their product has proven to be highly stable, with a long shelf life. That suggests it could be exported around the world and still be fresh when it arrives in-market.

“We found one of the prototypes we made about 18 months ago for International Year of Pulses that we came upon by accident,” Swallow said. “It was still quite soft and tasted good. Try that with most wheat-based licorice on the market: they’re as hard as a rock after about six months.”

Taste, health, storability, gluten-freedom. With so much going for pulse-based licorice, maybe it’s time to ask: why was this candy shop standby made with wheat in the first place?

“We believe these are good and marketable products,” Swallow said, “so it’s exciting. We’re looking forward to doing the rest of the development work and kickstart pulse-based licorice to the next level.”

Developing value-added meat products with non-allergen ingredients

albertapulse on January 3, 2019

Two years of R&D found that pulse ingredients can functionally replace wheat-based ingredients in bologna, hot dogs and beef burgers, while boosting nutrition.

In your nearest supermarket, you might find pulses in the canned foods aisle, on the soup shelves or in the dry section next to the rice. That’s today. Look to the future, though, and things could change significantly.

Expect to find pulse ingredients included in far more products in grocery stores. After all, pulse-based ingredients provide health benefits, are higher in protein and, unlike cereal-based alternatives, are also gluten-free.

Since 2016, Zeb Pietrasik has been studying the functionality of a variety of pulse-based ingredients as an alternative to the standard wheat crumb and wheat flour binders used in bologna, hot dogs and beef patties. This research was principally funded by the Alberta Livestock and Meat Agency (ALMA) and Alberta Pulse Growers.

“We started with burgers and screened over 30 ingredients, both pulse and non-pulse, and came up with a ‘final four’ binders to use in burgers,” said Pietrasik, Meat Scientist with Alberta Agriculture and Forestry’s Food Processing Development Centre.

In 2017-18, Pietrasik put his finalists — pea starch, textured pea protein, potato starch and rice flour — through their paces as binders for burger patties. The challenge was to test how these ingredients performed against wheat-based products, then ask consumers to weigh in on the burger’s taste.

Rigorous functionality and sensory testing

“The consumer provides the ultimate test,” Pietrasik said. “You might get very good results from the processing point of view, but if it’s not liked by consumers, there’s no point using it.”

Pietrasik’s research showed that pea starch and textured pea protein ranked the highest in functionality and consumer acceptability in beef burgers. Pietrasik’s team further pushed the envelope to improve the firmness and juiciness of the burgers by using a 50/50 blend of pea starch and fibre. Consumers loved it.

For bologna and hot dogs, Pietrasik’s research looked at alternatives to the wheat flour typically used as a binder in these products. The data showed that white navy bean flour and pea starch were strong candidates for substitution, without sacrificing functionality or consumer acceptance. Nutritionally, they’d be superior.

Having done this applied research, Pietrasik is now going out to industry with the findings. A well-received presentation to the Canadian Meat Council Conference in May 2018 confirmed what Pietrasik suspected: that food manufacturers are keen for tested ingredients that function well, meet with consumer approval and provide a gluten-free alternative.

With a firm foothold in the soup and canned goods aisle, pulse products now seem poised to enter the meat categories. While there’s no guarantee, Pietrasik’s data supports a case that processors are likely to find compelling.

“When compared to wheat flour, all pulse ingredients were on par,” Pietrasik said. “It can be used to replace wheat crumb in these applications with no detrimental effect on the consumer acceptability. This is very good news for pulse growers.”

Development of processing strategies for innovative commercially-ready pulse ingredients for the Canadian food sector

albertapulse on January 3, 2019

This major five-year project will start by examining value-added processing of prairie pulse crops, and ultimately develop new products and ingredients.

What happens when Western Canada grows far more pulses than it can process? Someone else realizes more value from these crops than we do.

It’s a situation Mike Nickerson, Professor and Ministry of Agriculture Strategic Research Chair at the University of Saskatchewan, captures neatly with a story about prairie-grown peas, Chinese processing and American manufacturing.

“I was told of a company that would buy Canadian peas, ship them to China to get processed into a concentrate, then ship it back to their plant in the States to make into a pet food product,” Nickerson said.

He sees no reason why Canadians can’t create that kind of added value right here. Currently, significant pulse processing capacity is being built or planned in Western Canada to take advantage of booming world demand for plant protein. Making the most of this opportunity will be Nickerson’s focus over the next five years.

With funding support from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and prairie pulse growers, he’ll be investigating innovative ways to process crops such as yellow peas, red lentils, Kabuli chickpeas and navy beans into high-value ingredients for a new generation of healthier food products.

Plant-based proteins now a processed food alternative

It’s well known that pulses have vast potential as a healthy, versatile and gluten-free food ingredient. What’s stopping food manufacturers from going all out with pulse ingredients? As Nickerson explains, food manufacturers need to be certain that new products will perform well.

“When a company makes a decision to slip in peas or lentils to replace some other ingredients,” Nickerson said, “they want to know it will not make major changes to the quality of the food product.”

Take pulse flour as one example. This ingredient can be used in pasta, soups, baked goods and more. Under Nickerson’s leadership, the project team will dive deep into the functionality and nutritional value of pulse flour — examining the role of particle size and processing techniques like fermentation and roasting.

“It’s a wide snapshot and a big project,” Nickerson said. “We go right from the farm to product development. We’re working through the milling stage to fully understand that, then will use that knowledge to tailor product development.”

Toward the latter stages of the project, Nickerson’s team will develop new prototype products made from pulse ingredients, then transfer this new knowledge to industry. It’s his hope that this will help food manufacturers confidently make the leap from conventional ingredients to more pulse-based ingredients.

To Nickerson, the beauty of this research is that it will be applicable and available to companies of all sizes, including those in Alberta.

“There are large and small companies looking to capitalize on how they can add value from pulses, and this includes farmers,” he said. “The industry is growing immensely in Alberta. It’s not a single company project. We’re here to open it up to the whole sector and help everyone grow.”

Novel combined sub/supercritical fluid process development for oligosaccharides production from crop fractions for the functional food industry

albertapulse on January 3, 2019

University of Alberta professor aims to obtain oligosaccharides from pea fibre concentrate using an innovative, rapid, environment-friendly method.

Pulse fractions are increasingly being used to make food products healthier. One aspect of this can be seen in the grocery store. Another relates to the area of nutraceuticals, where a food or food ingredient provides documented health benefits for prevention or management of disease.

For patients with gastrointestinal disorders or colon cancer, oligosaccharides obtained from crop fractions have been known to provide a therapeutic benefit. Current oligosaccharide production relies on processes that are effective, but often slow or environmentally problematic.

“Common processes use enzymes to obtain oligosaccharides, but this process is costly and time-consuming,” said Marleny Saldaña, Associate Professor in Food/Bio-Engineering Processing at the University of Alberta. “The other method uses various chemicals, which are toxic.”

That got Saldaña wondering how could oligosaccharide extraction be made quicker, cheaper and greener? In 2016, with funding support from Alberta Pulse Growers and Alberta Innovates Bio Solutions, Saldaña began a four-year project to examine this question.

Saldaña starts with a pea fibre concentrate left over when manufacturers process peas to obtain protein. With Canada being the leading producer of dry field peas, and various companies now producing a growing quantity of pea fibre, Saldaña saw an opportunity to convert this polysaccharide-rich by-product into oligosaccharides.

Process builds critical knowledge to help industry grow

Over the first 18 months of the project, Saldaña has achieved significant progress in studying enrichment of the polysaccharide fraction for further oligosaccharide production extraction.

“Our approach was to use a green technology where we could ultimately get a dry form or liquid form of the oligosaccharides,” she said. “Processing this co-product here, Alberta will get a much higher value for the final product.”

For Saldaña and her team, which includes two graduate students, the next year will see deeper investigation into how to achieve higher levels of purity in the oligosaccharides. As she sees it, the role played by her students not only advances the project at hand, but also builds critical bench strength that Alberta’s industry will need in the coming years.

Between now and early 2020, Saldaña and her team will continue to refine the processing method to obtain a data set that can be shared with industry to move this faster, cheaper, greener oligosaccharide technology closer to commercialization. It could also mean a high-value market for pea growers in the future.

Saldaña is excited that the early development steps taken by her team in this value-added process are helping to build productive links between academic research, industry need and the health of society.

“By doing research here in Alberta, we can grow the economy, we can grow innovation and involve the industry to commercialize it,” she said. “This funding is so critical, because without it, we cannot build those links.”

Coordinated monitoring of field crop pests in the Prairie Ecosystem

albertapulse on January 3, 2019

A vital insect management resource for the past 20 years, the Prairie Pest Monitoring Network is making plans for its new five-year funding period.

If you’ve ever read an insect forecast in a provincial agriculture publication or received an insect heads-up from a crop consultant, you’re likely familiar with the work of the Prairie Pest Monitoring Network (PPMN).

“The project has been going for over 20 years and we’ve had funding from a number of industry groups, as well as federal support, to run this coordinated monitoring project,” said Meghan Vankosky, Entomology Research Scientist with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.

The Network acts as a central hub of data for incidents and severity of key insect pests in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Information is gathered by farmers, agronomists, industry, university scientists and federal and provincial entomologists.

In 2018, the Network secured five additional years of funding from the Integrated Crop Agronomy Cluster, of which APG is a funder. Vankosky and Jennifer Otani (Biologist, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada) will serve as project co-leads, with provincial roles led by Scott Meers of Alberta Agriculture and Forestry, James Tansey of the Saskatchewan Ministry of Agriculture and John Gavloski of Manitoba Agriculture.

Old foes and new challenges

Farmers won’t be surprised to hear that several insect pests have been on the most-wanted list continuously throughout the past 20 years.

“We have a lot of biological data on insects like grasshopper and wheat midge,” Vankosky said. “We put that information together into different scenarios to forecast where they might be found and what their potential impact might be going into the next growing season.”

Other insect pests, such as pea leaf weevil, were little-known when the Network first started but have become a significant concern on the Prairies in recent years.

“The pea leaf weevil is one of several pests we now monitor for every year,” Vankosky said. “Going forward, we’re hoping to include new emerging pests, including pulse pests like pea and soybean aphids.”

Just as pest populations have changed in 20 years, notions of environmental stewardship have come a long way. More producers are careful to manage the impact of insecticide applications on beneficial insects and pollinators, and the Network’s maps help shape growers’ choices.

“Our maps show pest densities or areas at risk of pest outbreaks,” Vankosky said. “Growers can use that information to decide to avoid using insecticides in order to promote natural enemy populations, or to perhaps scout more closely.”

The Network provides this time-sensitive information on the distribution and severity of insect pest challenges mainly through their weekly online PPMN blog http://prairiepestmonitoring.blogspot.com/. They are also growing into social media.

Vankosky, or @Vanbugsky as she’s known on Twitter, believes technology will become more important in providing critical in-season information to growers on insect threats.

“The technology available to us has evolved a lot over 20 years,” Vankosky said. “We’ll be improving our online presence over the next five years based on what our subscribers want and how they want to get it.”