MANDAN, N.D. – Pulse acres may be down slightly in the upper Northern Plains, but Byron Lannoye, general manager of Pulse USA, sees a bright future for peas as a rotational crop and a good forage crop, especially when mixed with oats or other forages.
A variety of crops, including some green peas, yellow peas, and forage peas seeded with oats, are growing nicely and will yield well after a summer with timely moisture at the ARS Lab and Area IV Conservation District plots southwest of Mandan, where the 7th annual Pulse USA plot tour took place.
“We’ve got excellent plots out here. Everything looks so good,” said Lannoye.
Pulse USA, a seed and inoculant company, has seed growers in many states including the Dakotas, Montana, Minnesota, Nebraska, Wisconsin and Kansas.
“I’m very excited with some of the varieties we have in this trial,” Lannoye said, pointing out there were 33 varieties in the trial. “Some of them are old, but the bulk of them are brand new. We’ve got varieties in testing that appear to be way better than our standard varieties.”
Formerly, many of the green peas did not have the disease tolerance that yellow peas do. However, many of the newer green peas are bringing with them a good disease package and hopefully will be more agronomically favorable, he said.
“When we go farther west, we need more earlier-maturing, faster-flowering peas to beat the heat is what we think,” he said.
In the east, and this year in Mandan, the summer has been cool and moist. In the moister areas, disease packages are especially important.
Some of the varieties in the Pulse USA trial are still in the experimental phase so are numbered rather than named varieties.
There were a few releases from Europe that were growing well in the plots also.
“If they turn out well this year, some of these could go on the fast track (to being released by Pulse USA for producers),” Lannoye said. If they go on the fast track, varieties could be ready by spring of 2012.
The process Pulse USA uses for picking the varieties they select for the plot trials starts with quality, he said. They look at all the plots throughout the year which are located all over the region, and in several states, and take agronomic notes at various growing stages.
“In the fall, we visually examine the seed samples after harvest, and dispose f the varieties that do not have desirable processing qualities. That’s our first step in the process,” Lannoye said.
Secondly, they examine the agronomics of the quality varieties that are left. To aid in this process, they go through the field notes from the growing season and pick the varieties with the strongest agronomics in the plots.
The varieties planted in the trials at Mandan this summer have already gone through those cuts, he said. Some of those varieties may make it two or three years, and still have to be thrown out, because they aren’t good enough to be released to producers and/or processors, Lannoye said.
In addition, he takes samples of the peas out in the plots to show to the processors. If they don’t want the variety, then Pulse USA doesn’t use them.
“We have one high-quality yellow variety out here that has a little bit smaller seed size and one processor said the small size would cause a lot of waste during processing,” he said. “If it doesn’t succeed in the field trial as opposed to the plot trial, we might have to drop this one.”
Some of the varieties Lannyoe talked about on the tour included:
- Matrix is a larger green pea and one of the highest yielding on the market. It is being used mostly in Minnesota right now, Lannoye said.
- Journey is an older smaller-seeded green forage pea that stands fairly well.
- AP 2 is a semi leafless standup that has a lot of forage with it, and has a little bit larger seed than Journey.
- Map 1 is an experimental out of Progene in Washington. Lannoye said it had plenty of forage quality.
- Aragorn is the highest quality green pea on the market, he said.
The field pea has a smooth seed-coat and dark green cotyledon similar to Cruiser but with more bleach resistance. It is only available in a closed-loop system through Premier Pulse Int. in Minot, N.D.
- Pro 077-7108 is an experimental new yellow seeded, white flowered forage pea that the company Progene in Othello, Wash., is working with. If the forage quality and quantity remain steady, Pulse USA expects to look at it as one it will want to put on the fast track to release.
“When we test these varieties with Progene, we’re also testing them with the affiliate company in New Zealand,” Lannoye said.
That allows the pea to go through two seasons of testing in one growing year as their growing season is the opposite of Washington’s.
“The nice part about that is we have the possibility to fast track any of their new releases. What would typically take us up to eight years, sometimes we can get it going in four to five years,” he said.
Lannoye went out to Othello, Wash., last year and looked at 1,200 different pea varieties.
“There’s a lot of new genetics that will be coming out of that breeding program and other programs as well,” he said.
- Arcadia food-grade green field pea did “very, very, well” in yield trials last year, Lannoye said. It is a small-seeded pea, and Pulse USA has a large-scale seed increase with it this year.
“The seed will be widely available in the coming years,” Lannoye said.
- PUSA 09003 (all varieties with PUSA in front of them have been set aside exclusively for Pulse USA by one of the breeding companies) is a smooth-seeded yellow pea originally from Canada.
Lannoye said Pulse USA has a nursery in Canada with not only this pea but 40 to 50 other experimental peas in it. One of the peas is demonstrating a 150 percent yield advantage over DS-Admiral.
“It looks like it could replace Admiral,” he said.
- DS-Admiral is a yellow field pea highly desired by some processors. Admiral, while there are others that yield better, still has many acres in the region and is strong on agronomics, he said.
“When I was out in Montana this summer, this was the strongest looking pea in the drought,” Lannoye said. “However, Admiral can have a shattering problem in Montana in the heat.”
- APCM03018 is a smooth-seeded green pea that will be getting a name this year, Lannoye said.
“I think this one is going to be an excellent competition for Striker,” Lannyoe said. “It appears agronomically similar and it will probably out-yield it by 10 to 20 percent.”
- Striker, an edible green pea, covers the largest number of pea acreage in North Dakota, Lannoye said.
“Agronomically, for a green pea, this has been a very good variety. Quality-wise, it is probably medium and will bleach easier than Cruiser and Aragorn,” he said.
- Cruiser green field pea is one of the older varieties that is high-quality and genetically related to Aragorn.
In the higher-yield environments, which happens to be the case in Mandan, N.D., this year, the pea will not stand so well, Lannoye said. But in the drier environments such as western North Dakota and Montana, Cruiser is an outstanding pea.
He said standability can change from year to year depending on the environment so data from more than one year is important when making varietal choices.
“Standability as far as growers go is the number one issue,” Lannoye said.
- SSX 9902-R-2-3 out of Progene is a white-flowered forage pea, and also may be a replacement for other forage peas.
“The biomass that is in these is very, very good and mixing it in with oats will help them stand better in a forage mix, he said.
- K-2 is an older, smaller-seeded green field pea that is standing well out in the plots.
“One thing we see with the smaller-seeded greens is they seem to hold their color better than the larger-seeded greens. They are a little less susceptible to bleaching,” Lannoye said.
Producers en-joyed the plot tour that ended with a lunch. Several of the chemical and other agriculture companies took part in the tour and helped sponsor it.
http://www.farmandranchguide.com/articles/2009/08/18/ag_news/production_news/prod7.txt
agweek
Bonnie Cook