The pulse market has been largely quiet for the last couple of months, according to Adam Krieser of CanPulse Foods in Saskatoon, although rail shipments were curtailed due to weather and other issues including a fatal crash.

Three Canadian Pacific Railway crew members were killed Feb. 4 when a grain train derailed on CP’s mainline near Field, B.C.

Rail service had been very good for most of the crop year, Krieser said, but the last three weeks have seen some big players in the grain industry have trouble getting service. However, the railways are catching up, he noted.

Otherwise, for pulses “it’s been a market where you saw big amounts of coverage were bought by the industry here in Canada, right around Christmastime and at the start of January,” he said.

Those large amounts were quickly acquired internally or through brokers and completed without stirring up the market for a long time, according to Krieser.

“I think it’s going to be quiet for a while,” he said, as demand is not there and Canada’s stocks are in good shape.

“Everyone is nervous to hang a price out there and excite the market.”

As for India, its harvest likely will not be a record crop either way — not in terms of output or shortfall, especially lentils, he said.

About the only thing that could generate excitement in pulses in Canada is a few months away: seeding time. Krieser expects prices to move once Canadian farmers have planted their pulses for 2019.

— Glen Hallick writes for MarketsFarm, a Glacier FarmMedia division specializing in grain and commodity market analysis and reporting.