Two researchers are working together to ensure Alberta field peas meet the needs of growers, processors and consumers, with varieties that deliver from planting to plate.

Despite growing interest in lentils, faba beans and dry beans, pulses in Alberta have long been led by field peas. Some years, in fact, peas account for 75% or more of the revenue Alberta farmers earn from pulse crops.

With significant pulse processing capacity being added in Western Canada, researchers are developing high-yielding pea varieties that deliver more of what these processors want: protein.

In the spring of 2018, a group led by two veteran field pea researchers began a five-year collaborative project to develop high-yielding, high-protein varieties that process well and will appeal to consumers.

As pea breeder DJ Bing explains, a higher-protein pea variety can’t sacrifice yield, or growers will be reluctant to plant it. A high-yielding variety with lower protein could earn less revenue from protein-hungry processors. This being peas, the need for disease resistance and standability is also part of the discussion.

“Standability is one of our project’s top three priorities,” said Bing, Pulse Breeder with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. “Most producers would say that standability is crucial for the success of the pea industry.”

Over the next five years, with funding from the Canadian Pulse Research Science Cluster of the Canadian Agriculture Partnership, Bing will work on new field pea varieties that balance high yields and high protein.

“In the past 20 years, we’ve registered two varieties each year,” said Bing. “Can we achieve this same level for the coming years? I’m very dedicated to this and appreciate the support of the Canadian pulse industry.”

Future feedstock for pea processors

Making sure these high-yielding peas also process well and taste good is the other component of this project. It’s led by Jay Han, Senior Food Scientist with Alberta Agriculture and Forestry’s Food Processing Development Centre.

“Over the last 20 years, the target was to increase yield, but pea protein content has gradually decreased as yields increased,” Han said. “We’ve been able to get protein content to an average of about 20% now. Our next target is to move the protein into the high 20s sought after by processors.”

With the protein content target within striking distance, Han is setting his sights on easing field pea’s signature strong flavour and improving its functional food characteristics to give processors more of what they want.

It’s clear that yield is no longer the sole yardstick by which new field pea varieties will be measured. With expanding processing capacity in Alberta and pulse processors looking for functionality that will ultimately please the consumer’s palate, the future belongs to high-yielding, high-protein varieties that process well. As Han sees it, it’s an exciting time to be in peas.

“We’re working with processors building in Alberta who will be doing fractionation and extraction,” Han said. “We want to show that our capacity and expertise can support our Alberta growers and the processors, too.”

This newly funded program gathers pulse germplasm from many sources, and intensively screens it to find material that could one day become new varieties suited to Alberta.

Buyers around the world are demanding greater volumes of pulse crops. Here in Western Canada, significant new pulse processing capacity is coming on stream. To meet this growing demand, prairie pulse growers need to increase production.

There’s a clear track record that indicates we can do it. Over the past 10 years, average pulse yields have been on a strong upward arc.

In Alberta, part of the credit for this progress rests with a long-running, highly successful program that screens pea and faba bean germplasm for suitability under Alberta growing conditions.

With a new five-year funding commitment from Alberta Pulse Growers and Alberta Agriculture and Forestry (AF) recently announced, growers and industry can be confident that this program will continue to deliver.

“Varietal development is something that is very important for Alberta pulse growers,” said Christy Hoy, Pulse Crops Agrologist with Alberta Agriculture and Forestry. “Breeders are continually developing improved germplasm that has higher yields, enhanced quality, new market traits and disease resistance. This activity contributes directly to increased pulse yields, which is always a good thing.”

Six locations determine Alberta suitability

Under this project, Hoy and her team will continue to screen hundreds of pea and faba bean germplasm lines each year. These are gathered from breeding programs in Canada, the U.S. and Europe, including the Netherlands, France, United Kingdom, Finland, Germany and, soon, Israel. Field work takes place at six locations in Alberta that reflect the different agro-climatic zones in which pulses can be grown: Barrhead, Lethbridge, Vegreville, Lacombe, Brooks and Namao.

Hoy explained that the program is looking at a variety of criteria in field peas and faba beans, including: emergence or percent stand, days to flower, plant height, lodging resistance, physiological maturity, seed weight and yield.

From there, data is sent back to the breeders so they can select the most promising lines. This framework has been successful in recent years, as breeders have kept a steady flow of new varieties coming to growers. Additionally, the next five-year period will see Hoy’s program add lentils and lupins to its portfolio. Lentils are becoming more common in Alberta crop rotations, and she believes lupins are another crop to watch.

“Lupins are very high in protein and the demand for plant protein is on the rise,” Hoy said. “Lupins also have tremendous potential in fractionation for human consumption, pet foods and cosmetics.”

The past decade has seen significant improvement in the yield potential of pulse varieties grown in Alberta. In fact, previous generations of varieties from AF’s germplasm program are now the check varieties against which new contenders are measured. For pulse growers, processors and shippers, the program is one of the industry’s biggest competitive advantages.

Can Hoy, her research team and the world’s pulse crop breeders keep up their accustomed pace of innovation? Stay tuned.

“I’m really excited about the project and the number of entries and locations,” Hoy said. “It’s as big as it has ever been, and I think we’re going to generate some really great data. We’re very grateful for this funding.”

New dry bean varieties must combine field performance with canning and cooking quality. Newly announced funding will help bring the best lines to growers.

When a consumer opens a can of Canadian beans, whether they realize it or not, they’re gazing at a thing of beauty. Every bean in the can needs to be comparably sized, evenly coloured and pleasingly shaped, with nary a broken bean in sight.

This simple but essential quality experience is only possible because of the hard work of bean breeders across Canada. In one aspect of their work – see the story on page __ – breeders like Alberta’s Parthiba Balasubramanian develop varieties in different classes of dry beans that perform well in the field.

That’s not all. In addition, no new Canadian bean variety is registered without painstaking research into its canning and cooking qualities. With Canada being the fourth largest exporter of dry beans worldwide, and more than 98% of dry bean production consumed as food, there’s a lot resting on getting it right.

In 2018, a five-year funding commitment from the Canadian Pulse Science Research Cluster was announced, ensuring Balasubramanian’s long-standing work will continue. His task? Ensure Canadian dry beans meet exacting processor and consumer expectations.

Quality in, quality out

“A seed that’s nice going into the can usually comes out nice after canning as well,” said Balasubramanian, Dry Bean Breeder with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) in Lethbridge. “In the early part of the breeding program, the focus is primarily on the seed quality: size, shape, colour and seed coat.”

As Balasubramanian explains, lines failing to meet these quality demands are discarded early in the process. Only advanced lines of cultivars that have been through six years or more of development and breeding will face the final hurdle.

Harvesting 200-gram bean samples for each cultivar, Balasubramanian and his team work cooperatively with the Ontario Pulse Crop Committee on a project to cook, can and evaluate lines being considered for registration.

“For example, hard seeds don’t absorb water easily but they will absorb water during the canning process,” Balasubramanian said. “When they absorb water inside the can, they cause plumping that might break the seed during processing.”

Of dry bean cultivars that enter the canning and cooking evaluation program, only a select few will have what it takes to move on to registration trials. Those cultivars are high-yielding, disease resistant – and, in the case of Alberta – early maturing, along with the consistent quality that food processors and consumers demand. Many are tested, but few are chosen.

So, when an Alberta grower puts a new dry bean variety in the ground, they can be sure it’s going to be agronomically sound and produce high-quality food.

“I work with a great team here,” Balasubramanian said. “We have good germplasm and good funding. We want to make sure that any improvement we make is directed back to the growers. I am confident we will do that.”

New funding helps ensure that Alberta bean growers will continue to see a steady stream of early-maturing, high-yielding and disease-resistant new varieties with superior seed quality.

For a crop with a relatively small acreage, grown in a specific geographic range, dry bean in Alberta punches far above its weight in terms of dollars and cents.

The province’s 50,000 irrigated acres of dry beans produce a crop worth $35 million annually. Without yield losses caused by the key diseases white mould and bacterial blight, that figure could be considerably higher.

That’s why Parthiba Balasubramanian’s work over the past 15 years with dry beans has been so important. He’s developed many varieties specifically suited to Alberta’s growing conditions that mature earlier, have improved disease resistance and yield higher.

“Breeding is a long-term thing,” said Balasubramanian, Dry Bean Breeder with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) in Lethbridge. “Bringing traits like disease resistance into early- maturing lines is step one. Once we have it in lines that are adapted to southern Alberta, we then cross them with the cultivars that have proven themselves. Those crosses generally result in the most productive cultivars.”

Balasubramanian’s long-standing breeding efforts could also be deemed productive. In 2017, 99% of acres grown in Alberta used varieties that came out of the Lethbridge program.

Research assured for five more years

Dry bean growers in Alberta received good news this summer with the announcement of new funding from the Canadian Pulse Science Research Cluster which will allow Balasubramanian to continue his work until 2023.

A new target of Balasubramanian’s research is to look beyond plant standability to avoid white mould disease. He’s looking to add partial physiological resistance within the plant.

Balasubramanian points to one recently registered variety to illustrate the kind of improvement this approach can bring about. Othello, a bean variety that was grown in 2007, can result in white mould in up to 75% of the plants, due to a weak stem and poor standability. Balasubramanian’s cultivar, the 2016-registered AAC Explorer, drastically reduces white mould incidences to around 25%, due to its lodging resistance. That’s targeted breeding in action.

“We’ve seen this work time and again in this program,” Balasubramanian said. “For example, common bacterial blight resistance was only available in late-maturing lines developed for Ontario. Throughout the years, we crossed the Ontario lines with those better for Alberta, and now we have many lines in our program with bacterial blight resistance.”

As Alberta’s dry bean growers look for higher-yielding, more disease-resistant and earlier-maturing varieties in the future, new funding will allow Balasubramanian and his team to explore different ways to meet those needs.

“Growers take major risks with frost, and if cultivars are not high-yielding, bean production may not be profitable for them,” Balasubramanian said. “This dry bean breeding program has been able to develop cultivars that combine early maturity with high yield. Add in unique traits, and you make bean production even more profitable.”