Pinto beans. (Scott Bauer photo courtesy ARS/USDA)

Pinto prices strong, farmers weigh new-crop options

CNS Canada –– Manitoba pinto bean spot prices are holding steady near yearly highs, as adverse weather during the growing season scaled back production. “It was a pretty wet year, compared to the previous year,” said Dennis Lange, Manitoba Agriculture’s industry development specialist for pulse crops in Altona. Areas of southern Manitoba saw heavy rainfall […] Read more

(Lentils.ca)

StatsCan lentil numbers confirm trade suspicions

CNS Canada — New Statistics Canada data has confirmed what traders already assumed: Lentil supplies aren’t lacking, despite excess moisture this year. Prices for the pulse had been trending lower with those suspicions, and buyers are looking to India for indications on where to move in the New Year. StatsCan estimates released Tuesday say farmers […] Read more


(Lentils.ca)

Lentils, chickpeas can help reverse soil erosion trend, U.N. says

Rome | Thomson Reuters Foundation — Planting more lentils, chickpeas and other pulses will improve the health of the world’s soils that have reached critical levels, threatening to worsen hunger and poverty levels, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said on Monday. About a third of the world’s soils are degraded because of soil […] Read more

Desi chickpeas. (PulseCanada.com)

Most Canadian chickpeas headed for feed market

CNS Canada — Low yields and poor quality have caused Canadian chickpea price quotes to shoot higher. Very little of the crop actually falls under the top grades, however, leaving the bulk of the marketing to take place in the feed sector. “The chickpea harvest has been an unmitigated disaster,” said Colin Young of Midwest […] Read more


lentils in a bowl

Lentils: the crop year in review

2016 brought a wet season and a damp harvest. Lentil crops didn’t like that

Lentil growers had a hard time pulling off a good crop in 2016. A wet growing season and damp harvest plagued many farmers. “Without a doubt there were some good quality lentils produced in 2016, but the percentage of high quality lentils produced would be much lower than what we typically see in Western Canada,” […] Read more



Fababean growers should also make sure they don’t plant fababeans adjacent to last year’s fababean, pea, or lentil fields.

Yield-robbing fababean diseases

If you’re putting fabas in the ground, be ready to manage these common diseases

Farmers with aphanomyces-infested fields are faced with a tough decision. Stretch the rotation between susceptible pulse crops to six or eight years, or drop them altogether? Some farmers are opting for less susceptible pulses, including fababeans in moist areas. Of course, fababeans could be vulnerable to disease as well. Here are the foliar diseases fababean […] Read more

How crop diseases become resistant to fungicides

Have you ever wondered how crop diseases develop resistance to fungicides? The first thing to know is that fungicide doesn’t actually cause mutations. Those mutations are random, and can be caused by UV rays, cosmic rays, and cell replication errors, said Dr. Sabine Banniza. Mutations drive evolution, Banniza said. But the last thing farmers want […] Read more