Francois Eudes is the director of research, development and technology for the science and technology branch at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) at Lethbridge. As part of his role, he oversees AAFC’s breeding, innovation and crop germplasm development.

Eudes says a big part of the multigenerational approach to breeding new varieties of cereal crops such as wheat and barley is eliminating offspring that won’t perform at sufficiently high levels.

“The selection process is much more about the elimination of poor genetics among the sister lines. We’re going to eliminate the poor-performing one under selection for some traits and move the better one to the next generation where another selection is going to be done,” he says.

The development of new cereal crop varieties is unique in comparison to most other crop types. Most of the crop breeding efforts in Western Canada are conducted by the public sector. That includes AAFC as well as post-secondary institutions such as the University of Saskatchewan, through its Crop Development Centre (CDC), the University of Alberta and the University of Saskatchewan.

In most cases, those institutions don’t directly commercialize the varieties they develop. Instead, they partner with stakeholders such as seed companies to commercialize those varieties through variety licensing agreements.

Curtis Pozniak, a professor and director of the CDC at the U of S, says it takes, on average, eight to 10 years to develop a new variety, which means breeders need to “have a bit of a crystal ball” when determining what the priorities need to be for future varieties.

The main areas of focus for breeders are typically yield and reliable yield performance in a range of different environments and soil types; disease and insect resistance; and tolerance to abiotic stresses such as drought and heat.

Marketability is another important consideration when developing new varieties of cereal crops, Pozniak adds.

“If you look at barley used in brewing, there’s a very specific quality profile that’s in demand by the industry and by the end-use customer. Likewise with wheat and durum, the quality profiles are very well defined in terms of what our customers are looking for,” he says.

“It’s all about developing the package of yield, reliability and marketability that’s most important, really pushing the yield envelope and having that combination of agronomic traits and pest-resistant traits that growers are demanding, while still maintaining that marketability and end-use quality.”

Like most crops, cereals have had to endure a wide range of severe weather conditions across Canada in the last several years, including drought and extended periods of extreme heat.

While that has been an important consideration when it comes to breeding efforts in cereals, it is not an entirely new breeding target. Pozniak says plant breeders have historically tested new cereal varieties in a wide range of conditions in order to select products that will perform well across a range of environments, and that continues to be the case.

“I wouldn’t say we’re necessarily focusing more on selecting for heat and drought tolerance. That has always been a breeding target, but the extreme heat and drought like we experienced this past summer have really provided us with the opportunity to evaluate those genetic combinations that do well,” he says.

Ellen Sparry, general manager of C&M Seeds at Palmerston, Ont., agrees. She recently came across a paper from the Canadian Journal of Research from 1936 referring to studies on drought resistance in spring wheat.

“It is always on a breeder’s radar to try and select the right varieties that combat drought and other climate challenges. That’s why we test varieties over several years before taking anything to commercialization,” she says.

That said, breeders are having to look at things in a slightly different, climate-induced light, she adds.

For example, changing climates have forced plant breeders to respond to shifts in disease. Sparry cited an example of a winter wheat her company developed that was wiped out in a single year due to leaf rust.

“It had good tolerance and then we had a shift one year and it was all but wiped out of the marketplace,” she says.

Eudes agrees climate change and extreme weather conditions are prompting plant breeders to look at some things in a new light. For crops such as wheat, he says that includes looking at varieties that have been grown in other countries to deal with even hotter and drier conditions and adapting that germplasm so those varieties can be successful here in Canada.

‘Nimble’

Plant breeding has traditionally been a marathon rather than a sprint, but some new tools have the potential to change that.

Gene editing technology has been around for some time but it’s still a relatively new concept in terms of Canadian agriculture. AAFC seeded the federal government’s first plots of gene-edited wheat in Lethbridge earlier this year.

Sparry says gene editing has the potential to be a game-changer when it comes to breeding new varieties of wheat and other cereal crops.

“I think it’s always on a breeder’s mind that they have to be nimble, which is not an easy thing to do in a breeding program,” she says. “Perhaps gene editing can get us there a little quicker. Hopefully, this is a goal that allows breeders to adapt a little bit quicker to changing situations.”

Tyler Groeneveld concurs. Groeneveld is the North American director of grains and oils for Corteva Agriscience. The company spends $4 million a day on research and development and, he says, a tool like gene editing has the potential to unlock a host of new opportunities.

“The advent of gene editing and our expertise with that particular modern plant breeding tool means that we’ll be able to identify and commercialize traits of interest and seed technology quicker than we would in the traditional biotechnology route to market,” he says.

Another relatively new tool that could help plant breeding efforts is phenomic selection. It’s a low-cost, high-throughput alternative to the use of genetic markers, employing spectral data to predict complex traits with statistical models that use software algorithms.

Eudes says phenomic technology is still relatively new here in Canada but has been in use in Europe for more than a decade already. In one example of its use, multiple data sets could be collected via drones to monitor a crop and predict its performance even before that crop has reached maturity.

“That way, a decision could be made earlier, either to continue the evaluation of the line or essentially eliminate that line,” he explains.

‘Diversification’

As these new tools and technologies continue to evolve, new varieties of cereal crops are being introduced into the developmental pipeline.

Earlier this year Corteva introduced its new Trusource wheat. Trusource is a high-fibre durum wheat that provides increased dietary fibre in everyday foods such as pasta. It’s currently available to food companies for trial in product development and will be released commercially to farmers sometime in the next few years.

“Trusource wheat will bring new nutritional innovation to wheat and … benefits compared to traditional wheat. It supports improved gut health and blood sugar management. It helps promote satiety (fullness),” Groeneveld says.

“It’s a very exciting opportunity when we look at market diversification and increase in value for a crop that Canada is known for — being a very high quality, reliable supplier in durum to the global market.”

AAFC is expected to announce its next set of co-op trials and which lines it will register following the Prairie Grain Development Committee’s meeting in February.

Eudes says one of the most promising cereal crops AAFC has in its developmental pipeline is a durum wheat that was developed in Swift Current. It has been shown to have intermediate resistance to fusarium head blight (FHB) — the first durum wheat in Canada to be so rated. It was registered in February 2023 and should be available to farmers within the next two years.

In addition, AAFC breeders are working on a new higher-performing variety of milling oat as a replacement for AC Morgan which, Eudes says, is getting “a bit old,” having been around since 1999.

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I initially contacted AAFC to find out what their annual budget for wheat breeding is and what portion of that would come from producers. Elizabeth Foster, director general at AAFC, responded that “Given the multidisciplinary and integrated nature of AAFC’s wheat science program, which includes variety development, we are not in a position to provide
a reliable estimate of spending for wheat breeding in Western Canada.”

Their annual revenue from royalties for 2017-18 was $4 million.

Starting in 2015, the Western Grains Research Foundation contributed $20 million over five years to core funding for wheat breeding at AAFC and $1.4 million per year for barley breeding. These agreements end in 2020.

In 2013 a five-year wheat science agreement between producer groups and the federal government was announced as part of Growing Forward II. This $25.2 million of project-based funding included $12.5 million from the AAFC budget and $12.7 million of producer money from WGRF, Alberta Wheat Commission (AWC) and the Canadian Field Crop Research Alliance, an Eastern Canada- based farm group.

Growing Forward II expired in 2018 and its replacement — the Canadian Agricultural Partnership (CAP) — will be announced early in 2019. Lauren Comin, research director of AWC, said she could not discuss specifics of the announcement, but said that her organizations contribution to the cluster under CAP “will be approximately double what they were under GFII.”

The wheat commissions from all three prairie provinces are contributing to the CAP wheat cluster under the banner of the newly formed Canadian Wheat Research Coalition. This organization will likely also take over the core funding of wheat breeding at AAFC and other institutions when WGRF’s core agreements end in 2020 and 2021.

Comin said AWC’s annual research budget is $2.82 million with about 75 per cent of that going to genetics projects. This includes the $1.3 million that AWC contributed to the Growing Forward II wheat science cluster and $766,500 over five years to a three-way partnership between AWC, Canterra Seeds and AAFC to specifically develop CPS wheat varieties.

In 2016, WGRF announced five-year agreements with the Crop Development Centre at the University of Saskatoon. Those total $5.2 million for wheat breeding and $2.4 million for barley breeding.

A 2016 report produced for the CDC by JRG Consulting indicated that the Saskatchewan government has contributed just over $100 million to CDC for research and development between 1984 and 2014. During roughly that same time frame, WGRF contributed $33.7 million and royalties accounted for $26.8 million of CDC revenues. The Saskatchewan Pulse Growers became a major funder of CDC in 1997 and by the time their current agreement expires in 2020 they will have contributed $53 million of producer money to pulse variety development.

Another industry report compiled by JRG Consulting in 2015 concluded that producers and private industry each contributed about $6.2 million to wheat breeding each year, while the government and public universities contributed about $33.7 million per year. These numbers appear to have changed quite a bit in the last four years. WGRF alone contributed $8.3 to $9.9 million annually to wheat breeding between 2015 and 2018. According to a study by the Canadian Seed Trade Association which looks at private investment in plant breeding, their members are now investing $20.8 million annually in wheat breeding.

Since 1995 WGRF has contributed $96.9 million to wheat breeding in Western Canada and $16.4 million to barley breeding during the same time. Provincial wheat and barley commissions in Saskatchewan and Manitoba have also contributed directly to variety development, but those specific numbers were not readily available. Since those organizations are fairly new, their contribution to date is relatively small, but set to grow.

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Curtis Pozniak, a wheat breeder and geneticist at the Crop Development Centre in Saskatoon, says they are seeing developments in fusarium resistance in new durum varieties. “It’s slow, but there’s an improvement,” he told the audience.

Weather conditions in 2017 were not conducive to too much fusarium infection in most of the durum-growing regions, but farmers are still reeling from extensive damage in 2016. Breeders are doing all they can. But when Pozniak was asked, “Which two traits have been most difficult to breed for?” Pozniak’s answer was “fusarium and fusarium.”

Some factors make it difficult for breeders to develop fusarium-resistant durum.

Little native resistance: First, Pozniak said, “there’s not a lot of native resistance.” When they are looking for genes that might contribute to resistance, they don’t have a lot of options. “We don’t have a lot of genes in the native durum germplasm pool that we can use.”

So many genes: In the case of wheat midge tolerant spring wheat, a single gene makes the plants resistant to the pest. But no single gene does the job with fusarium. Instead, breeders “stack” genes — ensuring genes that might contribute to resistance are included in a potential new variety.

Ron Knox is a plant biotechnology research scientist with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada at Swift Current. He explained the complexity of the situation. “In bread wheats there’s over 200 genes, so far, that people have identified. It’s a very complex disease, genetically.”

With several genes contributing to fusarium tolerance, it can be difficult to measure the contribution made by each individual gene.

The sheer variation: Fusarium infection is so dependent on weather that evaluation “requires testing over multiple environments, testing the same material multiple times. And we have large year-to-year variation in this disease.”

This variation takes place not just in the field, but even in researchers’ specialized FHB nurseries. “There’s still a lot of nursery-to-nursery variation,” Knox said.

The trouble with DON: While it’s easy to identify fusarium damage, it’s not simple to test for DON, the mycotoxin deoxynivalenol, or vomitoxin. Measuring DON requires sophisticated, expensive tests.

Only a few years ago, Pozniak said, researchers didn’t have the capacity to select for DON susceptibility early in the breeding process. Instead varieties showing some promise would be further along in the breeding process before they were screened out due to susceptibility to DON. “We were only screening, we weren’t actually selecting.”

As Knox said, “We put a lot of emphasis on DON, but we haven’t had the resources to do selection directly for DON.”

As well as the cost of the tests, Knox pointed out, testing for DON requires additional labour during the harvest, and threshing of material.

Not all bad news

While fusarium has been top of mind, it wasn’t the only topic on the agenda.

“We’ve identified a couple of interesting dwarfing genes,” Pozniak told farmers. His team is breeding dwarfing genes from Australia into the Canadian germplasm. “When we add the dwarfing gene in we’re reducing the plant height by about 30 per cent.”

Breeders are also working on sprouting tolerance. They’re bringing genes for this in from bread wheat, “reducing the amount of sprouted kernels by about 80 per cent,” Pozniak said. These new varieties “are starting to move into the advanced stages of yield tests.”

Ken McDougall from McDougall Acres, a seed farm near Moose Jaw, Sask., was part of a producer panel that closed the Summit. McDougall pointed to the genetic advances we’ve already seen in durum seed. “Five years ago we had four options,” he said. These days, there are several potential durum varieties that he could promote to his customers. “That makes it much more complicated for seed growers,” he joked. “The new varieties that we have access to are quite exciting.”

Farmer Kris Ewen, a farmer and durum grower from Riverhurst, Sask., summed it up when he said he would keep growing durum, even without a fusarium-tolerant variety in the near future. “We’re in a durum-growing area. I don’t think it’s a crop we can let go.”

Rating for fusarium

After they check out the “yield” column for each new variety, most farmers reading the annual seed guide look to see how each variety might stand up against the most worrying diseases.

Curtis Pozniak, durum breeder at the Crop Development Centre, explained that when breeders rate durum seed varieties for fusarium resistance (ranging from R, resist- ant, to S, susceptible), they take three actors into account.

• Incidence: 20 per cent of the weighting. Incidence describes the number out of out 100 heads of durum in a field showing symptoms of infection.
• Severity: 20 per cent of the weighting. Severity describes how badly the head of the plant has been damaged by fusarium.
• DON: 60 per cent of the weighting. This factor measures the presence of deoxynivalenol (DON), also known as vomitoxin. DON is produced by fusarium graminearum. Because it can be toxic, DON is given a high weighting.

The Government of Saskatchewan’s “Varieties of grain crops, 2018” has this to say: “Although no varieties are resistant, Brigade, CDC Credence and Transcend generally express lower FHB symptoms compared to other cultivars in the class. Mycotoxin (DON) production by FHB fungi is generally lower for Transcend.”

Pozniak explained: “Brigade and CDC Credence have an MS [moderately susceptible] rating more because they have reduced severity in the disease.”

The post No short-term fix for fusarium heard at Durum Summit appeared first on Grainews.

To keep wheat midge populations from adapting to the Sm1 gene, the industry developed the idea of planting a refuge within every midge-tolerant crop. Midge-tolerant wheat seed is sold as a blend with a non-midge-tolerant variety that makes up 10 per cent of each seed lot.

The soft white surprise

In 2015, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada biotechnologist Curt McCartney started wondering about natural midge tolerance in soft white wheat. He began evaluating dissected plant heads. Curt Pozniak and Krystaleee Wiebe at the Crop Development Centre at the University of Saskatchewan were working on a similar question.

Together, these researchers have found that the Sm1 gene occurs naturally in several varieties of soft white wheat. These varieties are: AAC Awesome, AAC Indus, and Sadash. AAC paramount may have the Sm1 gene; confirmation is underway.

The only soft white wheat variety that definitely doesn’t have the Sm1 gene is AC Andrew.

What does this mean? Planting soft white wheat crops that contain the Sm1 gene gives midge populations a chance to adapt. Farmers planting AAC Awesome, AAC Indus and Sadash have been unknowingly putting the usefulness of the Sm1 gene at risk.

What’s the solution? Todd Hyra, business manager for SeCan, says, “my advice to everyone, whether it be a seedgrower or a farmer, is, if they can get AC Andrew and remediate those products that are known now, do it. But I recognize it’s April. There is not going to be enough time, there is not enough seed. This is going to be a several-year process.”

By “remediate,” Hyra is asking farmers to voluntarily add a refuge of AC Andrew to their soft white wheat seed for spring 2017. This would mean adding a bushel of AC Andrew to every nine bushels of Sadash, AAC Awesome or AAC Indus.

Soft white wheat is only a segment of Prairie wheat acres. “We’re fortunate that we’re not dealing with five million acres of wheat,” Hyra says. In 2016, the Canadian Grain Commission reports, 12.4 million acres of wheat were insured in Western Canada. Of these, only 451,571 acres were soft white wheat. And, Hyra says, “half of this wheat is grown in a low midge pressure area. It’s new to Saskatchewan, and that’s the reason it’s important to get to remediation as quickly as we can.”

Deregulating Sadash to get it out of the system is one option. However, Hyra says, “the industry will be best served to have that product in the marketplace.” And, he says, “deregulation would take three years.” Hyra hopes Sadash seed can be remediated more quickly than that.

It’s important that soft white wheat growers co-operate. “The trait is out there for the benefit of wheat growers,“ Hyra says. “We want to preserve it because there’s no other options. That’s why we’ve taken this path of appealing to farmers to add the refuge and remediate as soon as they get a chance.”

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Almost all pulse leaf diseases are triggered by rain and moisture in the canopy, said Dr. Sabine Banniza, plant pathologist with the Crop Development Centre. “Many need the rain in order to spread.”

So which diseases should farmers be guarding against in their lentils? Banniza outlined the top leaf diseases she sees in Saskatchewan during a Saskatchewan Pulse Growers webinar.

Anthracnose

“The number one lentil disease we have in the province these days is anthracnose,” said Banniza.

Anthracnose causes beige or brown lesions. Those lesions are not very conspicuous, Banniza said, and so farmers and agronomists would have to look closely to see them. Once the disease is established, farmers will likely see leaf drop.

Those stem lesions can also girdle the stem, killing the plant above the girdle, she said. “And when this happens, you all of a sudden start seeing these dead patches in your lentil crop.”

There is anthracnose resistance in lentils, but that resistance covers Race One, the less aggressive strain. Race Zero is more aggressive and more common, and there is currently no resistance to it in cultivated lentil varieties.

Ascochyta blight

Ascochyta blight used to be the top lentil disease in Saskatchewan. But the last serious outbreak was in 2005, said Banniza. That drop is a success story of lentil breeding program, she said.

“We’ve bred quite good resistance into almost all the lentil cultivars that are available now,” said Banniza. As a result, the ascochyta blight population “has just imploded and hasn’t really been able to come back.”

Stemphylium blight

Stemphylium blight starts out as light beige lesions that coalesce. The whole leaf eventually turns brown. Farmers will also see leaf drop.

Spores are airborne, making it difficult to do field research on the pathogen, Banniza said. But the research they’ve done indicates that early to mid-flower infections may cause yield loss, seed stain, and seed infection.

However, stemphylium blight often rolls in late in the season. Those late infections probably don’t cause much damage, Banniza said. “And if it’s really late, it may actually work like a natural desiccant because it defoliates the leaves.”

White and grey mould

Sclerotinia white mould and botrytis grey mould are two different organisms. But they are “like sister and brother,” said Banniza. “They often show up together because they both thrive in the same conditions.”

These diseases are very recognizable because they grow on the outside of the plants, said Banniza. Cottony white mould on stems, leaves, flowers, and pods is sclerotinia, while fuzzy grey growth indicates botrytis.

Both diseases show up late in the season when canopies are dense and moist. Tall, lush lentil crops are more likely to suffer an infection. Lentils tend to lodge in those conditions, creating an even denser mat of biomass that doesn’t dry.

“And that’s when these two diseases really get going,” said Banniza.

Managing leaf diseases

Banniza recommends a four-year rotation to control leaf disease. Tightening the rotation raises the risk of building disease inoculum in the fields.

“And if you run into a year when conditions are conducive, you’ll see an earlier outbreak and a much more severe outbreak which is more difficult to control,” said Banniza.

However, that longer rotation is unlikely to reduce stemphylium blight because the spores are airborne, she added.

Farmers should also choose resistant cultivars when they can, she said.

Scouting is very important, said Banniza. The eight- to 10-node stage is the best time to apply fungicide, so scouting needs to be done before then.

Banniza said the management strategy is the same for several of the leaf diseases.

“So if you see lesions early on in your crop, and conditions are conducive to infection, it doesn’t matter whether it’s an anthracnose lesion or an ascochyta blight lesion or a stemphylium blight lesion.”

However, it’s a “different story” for sclerotinia white mould and botrytis grey mould, she said. Because those diseases develop in thick lentil stands, usually after canopy closure, fungicides don’t penetrate the canopy.

If a farmer is lucky, the fungicide will reach the top third of the canopy in those cases, Banniza said, but the disease is usually at the bottom. “So for these two diseases unfortunately fungicide is not a very good option.”

In fact, there are no great control options for sclerotinia white and botrytis grey moulds, she said.

“The best option is to manage your canopy. But that’s obviously very tricky because when you seed it, you don’t know what the growing season will look like,” said Banniza.

“If you knew it was going to be a wet year, you would probably try to seed at a slightly lower rate just to make sure the canopy is a little bit more open.”

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But while many farmers are relieved that rains quenched what was shaping up to be a dry year, ag retailers in northwest Saskatchewan urge farmers to scout their fields.

Ian Weber, sales manager at Warrington AgroDynamic in Mervin, says farmers are spraying for leaf diseases in cereals.

“Even in the healthy-looking stuff you can see lots of disease,” he said.

Some soft white wheat in the Glaslyn area is yellowing, said Dave Shepherd, location manager at AgriTeam. Shepherd is unsure whether those yellowing leaves are a yield-breaker, or whether it’s a disease or nutrient issue. But one farmer has sent in tissue samples.

“It doesn’t seem to be showing up in the spring wheat. Just the soft white so far,” he said.

It’s not only the ag retailers reminding farmers to scout for diseases.

“With the rain we have been having in many parts of the province now, I would suspect that are probably some symptoms showing up (in pulses),” said Dr. Sabine Banniza of the Crop Development Centre. Banniza outlined pulse diseases during a webinar hosted by the Sask Pulse Growers on Wednesday.

Banniza said pea and lentil growers should watch for early lesions. If the plant is already half-brown, “you missed the train,” she said. “And that’s why regular scouting is important.”

Banniza recommended applying fungicide before the canopy closes if pea and lentil growers see early symptoms.

“If it then continues to be wet, you would probably want to consider a second application in maybe three weeks or so,” she said.

Fungicide efficacy wanes in two to three weeks, plus new growth will not be protected by the first application, she explained.

Insect pressure eases, but threat lingers

Most regions reported insect damage, with the exception of the south-east, which suffered from flooding instead, according to the crop report. Reported insects in the last week included flea beetles, cutworms, and pea leaf weevils.

Both Shepherd and Weber said flea beetle pressure has eased in their areas. The odd case of flea beetles now is on late-seeded canola, said Weber.

But some farmers in the Glaslyn area have cutworms now, said Shepherd. “A little bit of reseeding going on because of cutworms. And a little bit of spraying going on.”

Cutworms haven’t been a big problem in the Mervin area so far – Weber only knew of three local farmers who were spraying for the pests. But farmers should still be monitoring the bugs, he said.

“If you haven’t sprayed for them, don’t think you’re out of the woods yet,” said Weber.

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The grower group contributes levy funds to the University of Saskatchewan’s Crop Development Centre pulse breeding program. In return, Sask Pulse holds exclusive commercial rights to varieties developed in the program.

Most new varieties are released royalty-free to seed growers through the variety release program. By distributing new and better varieties, Sask Pulse aims to grow the industry. Nationally-recognized select seed growers can request breeder seed as long as their provincial pulse groups have an agreement with Sask Pulse.

“To date, 115 varieties have been released through the variety release program,” a Sask Pulse release said Friday. The variety release program (VRP) includes peas, chickpeas, beans, faba beans and lentils.

But varieties that don’t have an established market would likely fail if released through this program, Sask Pulse said. For such varieties, the group instead considers offering exclusive rights through its tender release program (TRP).

Sask Pulse takes into account several factors before deciding whether to tender the rights to a market class or variety, from demand and product volume to whether it risks disrupting markets already supplied by Saskatchewan growers.

Seven of those tender agreements will sunset in 2017 and 2018. Before deciding whether to renew the tenders or release the varieties more broadly, Sask Pulse is looking for feedback from farmers and other stakeholders.

The grower group will also examine “performance of the tender partners to date, prospects for growth and an assessment of the need for exclusivity for the market class or variety to succeed,” the release said.

The tenders up for review include:

• Large Red Lentil (KR-1, KR-2 CL) – AGT Foods/Saskcan
• Spanish Brown Lentil (CDC SB-1, CDC SB-2, CDC SB-3 CL – Simpson Seeds
• Green Cotyledon Lentil (QG1, QG2, QG3 CL) – AGT Foods/Saskcan
• Large Seeded Food Grade Faba Bean (FB9-4) – AGT Foods/Saskcan
• Yellow Bean (CDC Sol) – Scoular Canada (formerly Legumex Walker)
• Black Bean (CDC Jet, CDC SuperJet, Blackstrap, Blackcomb) – Scoular Canada (formerly Legumex Walker) and Martens Seeds
• Slow to Darken Pinto Beans (WMI, WMII) – Scoular Canada (formerly Legumex Walker) and Keg Agro

The deadline for providing input is Friday, June 3. Growers and others can throw in their two cents through an online survey.

More information on the tender release program is available on the Sask Pulse website.

— Lisa Guenther is a field editor for Grainews and Country Guide at Livelong, Sask. Follow her at @LtoG on Twitter.

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“We have doubled our soybean acres in Manitoba over the past five years,” says Kristen Podolsky, production specialist with Manitoba Pulse & Soybean Growers (MPSG). “That has been a direct result of their ability to tolerate wet soil conditions in the Red River Valley and breeding programs, which have given us more, shorter season varieties, which also have good yield potential, to facilitate soybean expansion into western Manitoba and Western Canada.”

Soybean acres took a dip in Saskatchewan from 300,000 acres in 2014 to 250,000 acres in 2015, likely due to a combination of frost damage to some fields and economics favouring canola over soybean in some areas. But last year’s soybean yields were higher than growers had ever seen in the province, says Sherrilyn Phelps, agronomy and seed program manager for the Saskatchewan Pulse Growers (SPG). Soybean production in Saskatchewan is slowly increasing as shorter season varieties come to market, but most production is still concentrated in the southeast corner.

Soybeans are attracting a lot of attention from Prairie researchers looking to develop shorter season varieties.

Variety evaluation trials organized by Manitoba Agriculture, Food and Rural Development and MPSG, in co-operation with the Crop Development Centre (CDC) at the University of Saskatchewan, have been evaluating early maturing soybean varieties for more than a decade. This year the trials involved 12 sites in Saskatchewan and six in western Manitoba, and assessed 36 different entries from breeding programs across the country.

“This material is at least one level shorter maturity than what would typically be grown in the Red River Valley,” says Dr. Tom Warkentin, a pulse researcher at the CDC. “Even in that case, when we assess days to maturity the range that we’re publishing in the Saskatchewan Seed Guide is going from 118 up to 128 days. So that’s still quite a long season for this part of the world.”

Warkentin says Saskatchewan growers have been fortunate the last few years that most of these varieties have reached maturity before a killing frost, but they’ve also had seasons where the first killing frost has been later than average. “We feel that there’s still a big need to select types that have a little shorter duration while still maintaining good yield,” he says.

Pests and Disease

Although much of Manitoba has been in a wet cycle for the past few years, growers need varieties that can perform in all conditions. MPSG is funding a research project at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s Brandon Research Centre, led by Dr. Ramona Mohr, to assess soybean varieties under varying moisture conditions.

Although soybean pests, such as soybean cyst nematode and diseases such as sclerotinia white mould are not as problematic as they are in the U.S., researchers are keen to keep ahead of the curve by building resistance before they become a serious concern for growers in Western Canada.

More varieties are coming out that have soybean cyst nematode resistance, as well as resistance to Phytophthora root rot, which can be caused by multiple different races, and no one yet has a handle on exactly which races of Phytophthora are present in soybean fields across the Prairies. “We have been funding a project over the past two to three years with Dr. Deborah McLaren, a pathologist who has been surveying fields and collecting samples,” says Podolsky. “We are expecting this year to release what the most prevalent races of Phytophthora are in Manitoba soybean fields, which will provide a great tool for growers to match the resistant varieties that are available.”

Jordan Bannerman is leading research at the University of Manitoba to determine the best ways to measure the natural enemies (NEs) to soybean aphid present in farmers’ fields, to determine whether spraying is economically viable. Farmers can use a Dynamic Action Threshold (DAT), developed by Dr. Rebecca Hallett at the University of Guelph, to estimate whether or not the NEs are likely to reduce aphid numbers to the point where spraying is not necessary. Four Ontario soybean growers recently tested the DAT system. Based on the results, none of them chose to spray their fields, which never reached the injury level threshold of 675 aphids per plant.

Iron Deficiency Chlorosis (IDC) can also be a problem, particularly during wet growing conditions. “On the prairies we have calcareous soils and a higher pH which can increase problems with IDC, so IDC tolerance is another important attribute that growers should look for in today’s soybean varieties,” says Podolsky. Research is currently underway at AAFC in Morden, Man. to evaluate soybean breeding lines for IDC resistance.

Managing White Mould

There are only four fungicides registered for control or suppression of sclerotinia white mould in soybeans in Western Canada: Acapela (DuPont), Priaxor (BASF), Allegro 500F (Syngenta) and Delaro (Bayer CropScience).

Dr. Michael Wunsch of North Dakota State University, speaking to agronomists at the Manitoba Agronomists Conference, said U.S. research has shown an average reduction of around 45 per cent with a fungicide application at optimal timing. But, he adds, getting good coverage with a fungicide is vitally important to control white mould.

Wunsch said fungicides must be applied prior to sclerotinia infection but must also be applied when it is possible to achieve the fungicide coverage that is needed for that fungicide chemistry to provide satisfactory sclerotinia control. Results of field trials conducted to-date strongly suggest that the fungicides currently available in Canada must be applied at bloom initiation (R1 growth stage) to achieve satisfactory control of sclerotinia.

Shorter season varieties are generally less susceptible to white mould than longer season varieties, but the timing of wet weather matters in terms of white mould infection. Wunsch’s research under irrigation has shown there is a higher likelihood of infection if soils are moist during late vegetative growth and bloom initiation, and cool, wet, weather occurs during bloom and early pod (R2 and R3) stages. How precipitation falls is also important. “If you get frequent, light rainfall events you are much more likely to have severe white mould than if you get infrequent, heavy rainfalls even if the amount of water overall is the same,” says Wunsch.

Wider row spacing reduces the risk for white mould, but may not compensate for the yield drag generally associated with wide rows. Wunsch emphasizes that western Canadian soybean growers will have to experiment with different management strategies to determine what works best under their own conditions.

On-farm research studies conducted in eastern Manitoba have shown a significant yield response to fungicide application in only three out of 21 trials conducted from 2014 to 2015. “We aren’t seeing a consistent economic response to fungicide for several reasons,” says Podolsky. “First, sclerotinia although present at low levels, has generally not been yield limiting in the majority of Manitoba fields and the products being used are not registered for control of this disease in particular. Secondly, the most common foliar leaf diseases that are present are bacterial blight, which is not controlled by a fungicide and septoria brown spot which again is generally not yield limiting. I think the focus going forward needs to be on root rots and late-season stem diseases which have more potential to impact yield as we grow soybean more intensively.”

Managing weeds

Weed management in soybean is relatively straightforward, as most varieties available in Western Canada are glyphosate tolerant.

However, herbicide-resistant volunteer canola can be a problem in soybean crops. A team at the University of Manitoba led by Dr. Robert Gulden is researching different herbicide options and the use of tillage to help reduce the canola seed bank. An early fall tillage pass encourages canola seed left behind in the field to emerge and be killed off during the winter, said Gulden, who shared some of his research findings at MAC. He has also found that herbicide timing is important. Applications are most effective in preserving yield if they are made during the critical weed-free period for soybeans, but Gulden’s team is still trying to determine exactly when that is for Western Canada.

Acreage on the rise

What’s really been driving the increase in soybean acres, particularly in Manitoba, has been a combination of environment and economics, says Podolsky. “Soybean’s ability to adapt to wet conditions — which have been very prevalent over the past five years — has likely been a driving factor, and they have also been able to deliver good yields that are comparable, if not better, than other crops in rotation,” she says. “Soybeans also spread out the busy seasons for farmers, and we continue to have a good market for soybeans so that has been important as well, but overall it has been the ability to grow well in wet conditions and compete economically with other crops that has attracted growers to soybeans.”

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“What is driving grower’s interest in growing pulses this year is economics,” says Sherrilyn Phelps, SPGA’s Agronomy and Seed Program Manager. “Prices for lentils and peas are high which makes them very attractive right now. The fact that they don’t need a lot of fertilizer, which is an input cost, makes it even more attractive, and their nitrogen fixation capability is good for the soil, so pulses are a good rotational crop too.”

Saskatchewan has more pulse acres than the rest of Western Canada, and SPGA funds many breeding and research programs. SPGA invested $11.8 million into pulse research and market development for 2015-16. Agronomic research and extension activities are looking at issues with herbicide resistant weeds in pulse crops, diseases and the benefits of pulses in crop rotations. Other projects are looking at value-added opportunities for pulse ingredients such as starches, proteins and fibres, and to support potential health claims about human health and nutrition benefits.

There are many priorities for pulse research and varietal development. “One of the main issues right now,” says Phelps, “is that we are coming out of four or five years of wetter conditions where diseases have been a concern.” Research into disease, both agronomic management and varietal development, is ongoing. “Aphanomyces root rots are a big concern,” says Phelps, “and although 2014 was the worst year for those types of soil-borne pathogens, it’s still on people’s minds as they’re planning rotations and making crop choices.”

Other research is looking at the benefit of pulses in crop rotations and implications for soil biology and following crops.

Because pulses are a relatively small acre crop in North America compared to corn, soybeans, cereals and canola, there are fewer product options for weed control. “With limited products for use in pulses we have to do more work on integrated pest management when we’re looking at weeds,” says Phelps. “As new product development for pulses is limited there is continued work screening already existing chemistries for tolerance in various pulse crops. This will continue for the future and herbicides will be part of an integrated strategy to combat weeds.”

Pulse growers are also dealing with Group 2 resistance in some weeds, which is one of the few herbicide options available to them. “We have to look at other alternatives from the products that we have, as well as other agronomic methods, such as adjusting seeding rates or different management strategies, like controlling weed seeds after harvest,” says Phelps.

Newer pulse crops gaining ground

Developing varieties that are adapted to grow in all areas of Saskatchewan, and other prairie provinces, is also a focus, especially in some of the newer pulse crops, like fababeans. “The Crop Development Centre (CDC) at the University of Saskatchewan is working to develop fababean varieties that are more suited to drier areas of the province, or shorter growing seasons,” says Phelps.

SPGA is also funding breeding and genetic improvement research at the CDC, which includes the sequencing of pea and lentil genomes, development of rapid generation technology and marker assisted breeding.

Chickpea is a pulse crop that’s seeing renewed interest from growers. “We used to have around one million acres of chickpea in Saskatchewan, but growers ran into disease issues and had a hard time growing them, so they turned away from them,” says Phelps. “But now, with more interest in pulses, there are growers that are going back to chickpea and we need to be looking at how we can incorporate those in more areas of the province as well.”

Although pulse yields this year were average, there were few issues in terms of production, adds Phelps. “Lentils and peas came off good, with good quality for the most part. Crops with delayed harvest due to fall rains were not as good quality with some germination issues being reported. Chickpea and dry bean production were also successful this year,” she says. “There’s money to be made in pulses and that’s really why growers are looking at them for this year.”

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“The lentil genome assembly will provide important information to help us better understand this crop,” said Kirstin Bett, U of S professor in the Department of Plant Sciences and project lead of the international lentil sequencing effort in a January press release. “More importantly, it will lead to development of genomic tools that will help improve breeding practices and accelerate varietal development.”

Dr. Bert Vandenberg of the Crop Development Centre (CDC) is another of the researchers involved in the genome project. He is the only lentil breeder in Canada, and one of only three in North America, working on extensive lentil breeding research. “In lentils we are operating on many fronts,” he says. “Our central theme of course is the ability to improve both yield and understanding the genetic basis of quality traits, agronomic traits and disease resistance.”

There are emerging issues, such as a rise in the incidence of root rot, and Vandenberg’s team is working to develop better resistance to this and other diseases in new varieties. “As acres expand our workload is expanding as well,” says Vandenberg. “We are seeing resistant weeds, so we need new herbicide tolerance. We are going to see five million acres of lentils this year, so that’s going to create new problems if people are growing lentils in places where they never thought they would,” he says.

Canada is the world’s largest exporter of lentils, and Saskatchewan produces 95 per cent of the Canadian crop. Statistics Canada reports that Canadian lentil exports from August to November last year totalled a record 1.36 Mt, 65 per cent more than the amount exported during the same period in 2014. Export demand is expected to remain strong in 2016 and seeded acres could top five million in Saskatchewan alone this year.

Prices for lentils have been strong over the past few years, with huge growth in export markets such as India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka as a result of increasing demand and crop shortfalls in these countries due to drought.

Prairie moneymakers

“Lentils are very profitable for growers at the moment,” says Sherrilyn Phelps, agronomy and seed program manager, Saskatchewan Pulse Growers Association (SPGA). “That’s why there’s an interest in lentil research. It’s a relatively new crop on the Prairies, and there are still things that we’re trying to figure out, and issues we’ve come across that we haven’t looked at in the past. We are working on taking lentils to the next level and sustain production here in the province.” SPGA has provided more than $2.4 million in funding towards lentil genomic research.

Vandenberg says that lentil consumption is rapidly increasing — at a rate five times higher than human population growth — partly driven by the fact that lentils are one of only a few pulses that cook quickly. “We’re going to see continued rising consumption, so we are engaging in doing what we need to do to have a stronger industry in Canada,” says Vandenberg. “We are looking at a business development model to expand the role that Canada can play in the milling and de-hulling industry. Then if we are going to be de-hulling how do we add value to the other pieces of the seed that will be left behind.”

Vandenberg says that there is a lot of scope for further research to improve the agronomics, quality and disease resistance in lentils. “A lot more can be done with continuing, strategic investments to make the industry stronger,” he says. “Lentil is a small crop with not a large research community. There is definitely scope to expand that.”

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