“The planter/seeder debate is an interesting one. Essentially, it’s a cost/benefit analysis,” said Darren Bond, farm management specialist with Manitoba Agriculture.

Of course, buying a shiny new piece of farm equipment brings financing costs — but that’s only the beginning.

“The biggest thing is the cost, but cost is always the easy part of the cost-benefit analysis,” said Bond. “So we have to look from a broader perspective.”

On the other side of the balance sheet is seed savings.

“One of the big selling points of using a planter is being able to reduce the seed rate. Seed is very expensive,” he said. “In our 2025 cost of production guide, canola is $82.50 an acre. If we can halve that seed cost, there’s some pretty big savings there.”

Fendt’s Momentum planter in the spotlight

That cost-conscious mood was on display at Ag in Motion 2025 near Langham, Sask., where AGCO featured its Fendt Momentum planter.

The Momentum is AGCO’s flagship planter, and Don Green, product specialist with Fendt, said it brings new capabilities. With a 130-bushel seed tank and a 1,000-gallon liquid tank, it sits at the high-capacity end of the market.

Green said canola is proving to be a viable fit for the planter. Fendt recently sponsored some research that was done at Olds College in Alberta.

“They did a side-by-side comparison with a competitive air drill, and it showed that we could produce more plants per acre with a lowered seeding rate,” he said. “So, there’s automatically a seed savings in there.”

The Olds trial also showed a two-bushels-per-acre yield advantage, but Green said that yield boost isn’t a guarantee, as those kinds of results are variable.

“I wouldn’t count on that as part of the economics, but the one thing you can count on is that this planter will establish your crop for a lower seed cost per acre,” he said. “That is consistent across all of the work that we’ve done.”

Between yield and seed savings, researchers found a $50 per acre net benefit for planted canola compared to canola seeded with an air drill.

Looking beyond canola

Green said he is also excited by pulse crop potential. They are in the midst of side-by-side trials in Saskatchewan looking at the benefits of running chickpeas and lentils through a planter. Beyond the seed savings expected to mirror the canola trials, he said they’re hoping that because of the better seed placement and spacing the planter offers, there might be some disease benefits.

“I’m not making promises, but we’re sure watching to see what the results are,” he said, adding that early results are expected later this fall.

Agronomic case still taking shape

Ken Coles, CEO of Farming Smarter, also said the idea of planters for pulses makes sense, and that there could indeed be disease benefits.

“I wouldn’t disagree that sometimes a wider row spacing might allow for more airflow. That might be a good thing for disease management,” he said.

Farming Smarter is a southern Alberta non-profit that runs agronomic research trials and shares practical, science-based best practices with farmers.

The group co-authored a 2021 study in the Canadian Journal of Plant Science that compared precision planters and air drills across 12 site-years in Alberta. The work found planters could cut seed use and, under irrigated conditions, boost canola yields by about 10 per cent, though results were mixed under dryland conditions.

Coles noted that planters first made their mark in canola through the seed industry. Hybrid seed producers once relied on old box drills to keep male and female seed rows separate, but precision planters offered a simpler and more accurate way to do the job. Many seed growers adopted them early on because they were already using planters for crops like dry beans or sugar beets.

That early adoption set the stage for broader, on-farm interest. And for regular canola growers, Coles said planters bring clear advantages in seed placement.

“Honestly, they’re designed to do a better job than our traditional air seeders,” he said. “They will do a better job in every setting. Does that mean you can just jump straight into using them? No, there’s a lot more to the story.”

That story includes crop type and environment. Coles points out that you could plant anything and expect better seed placement, but the reason that canola is a better candidate than, say, wheat is because of what he described as the crop’s plasticity.

“Canola has an amazing ability to branch and take advantage of the space that it has,” he explained.

He pointed to Australia, where farmers began using planters sooner than here in North America. However, they were using comparatively wide row spacings under quite different environmental conditions. That approach didn’t translate well to Prairie conditions.

“When we tried using a planter on 30-inch rows here, it just didn’t do well,” Coles said. “When we moved it down to about a 15-inch row spacing, then we found that it was pretty competitive.”

Results across years and conditions have been mixed. Under irrigation, Coles found the narrower rows were better, but with dryland farming, moisture became the critical factor.

“So sometimes it was better, sometimes it wasn’t. It was a little inconclusive,” he said.

That uncertainty highlights why Prairie growers are cautious.

Not built for zero till

One of the downsides to planters is that they were not designed for zero-till systems.

“That’s where having row cleaners is important, and the appropriate down pressure, so that if you want to take it into a zero-till system, it will still do a good job,” said Coles.

Despite the challenges, he said he sees potential growth for the technology, though he doesn’t expect air seeders to disappear. He noted that companies are already incorporating planter features such as parallel linkage, seed firmers and seed singulation into their drills.

“Is it going to be the element of every operation? Probably not. It’s a pretty expensive way to seed certain things,” he said.

Fertilizer adds a wrinkle

Another consideration is fertility.

“You still have to figure out how to get your fertilizer down,” said Coles. “That’s a systemic, on-farm logistics issue when your traditional seeders are set up well to do that.”

Bond agreed and said fertilizer application should be top of mind for farmers considering shifting to a planter. He noted that when farmers switch from a seeder that applies fertilizer during seeding to a planter, they must find another way to put that fertilizer down.

“Is that going to be an extra pass? And if we have that extra pass, then are we essentially giving up the advantages that we’re getting with the planter?”

How a farmer addresses this is critical. Poor timing or placement can lead to environmental losses that aren’t obvious right away but can drag yields down over several years.

Bond noted that moving fertilizer to a separate pass means farmers must weigh trade-offs: spring applications reduce losses but add workload at a busy time and risk drying out the seedbed, while fall banding can be efficient if soils are cool, with the added benefit of often cheaper fertilizer prices.

He stressed that the key is finding an alternative system that matches the efficiency of an air drill. Otherwise, the economics of switching to a planter may not hold.

Fertilizer prices make the issue sharper.

“Phosphorus is very expensive. Our market rates in Manitoba are close to $1,300 a tonne,” Bond said. “Because we’re widening our seed rows, we can’t put quite as much in the seed row as starter fertilizer due to seedling toxicity and fertilizer toxicity.”

That means phosphorus often must be placed elsewhere, adding cost and complexity.

Weeds complicate the picture

Weed control is another factor farmers need to examine.

Bond pointed out that farmers moving to a wider row spacing with canola need to be diligent when it comes to weed control.

“The wider your row spacing, the longer it takes for that canopy to close, the more opportunity there is for weeds like kochia and the redroot pigweeds and lamb’s quarters to really take off,” he said.

Where planters fit

Despite the challenges, Bond sees scenarios where planters make sense.

One is on farms where the air drill is maxed out. A planter can add seeding capacity, allowing some canola to be seeded earlier rather than at the tail end of the window, potentially improving yields.

“It just alleviates that pressure,” said Bond.

Another is on farms already growing corn or soybeans, where a planter is in the yard for those crops. In those cases, shifting some canola acres makes sense without overhauling the system. Bond said most of his clients don’t seed all their canola with planters, but allocating a portion of acres can be a good fit.

“To look at it from a whole farm perspective is very beneficial,” he said.

A constructive debate

Bond said the fact that farmers are talking about planters at all is a positive sign.

“This debate has been going on for a good 10-15 years,” he said. “Some producers just love using planters with canola because they’re able to save $30 or $40 an acre on seed costs, and they feel that pretty much pays for the planter in their situation.”

At the same time, other farmers remain skeptical.

However, Bond says more important than any single answer is the debate itself. He sees the discussion as a good thing because it has farmers talking about reducing costs without reducing yield.

“That’s the only way that producers are going to get through tight margin years.”

The post Seed costs spark new interest in planters for canola appeared first on Grainews.

Lupins outpace field peas and faba beans in terms of protein and starch level ratios, with up to 40 per cent protein and six per cent starch, making the crop attractive for plant-based protein production.

“The interest in Canada, especially in Western Canada, was always trying to look for something potentially new and different to try to bring into into our cropping rotations,” Robyne Davidson, a pulse research scientist at Lakeland College, said during a field school tour at Farming Smarter near Lethbridge.

”Down here, you guys have way more options. I hail from central Alberta, where we basically have four, maybe five crops that we can rotate through,” says Davidson, who has been researching lupins for about 15 years.

Another draw that has piqued some Prairie interest has been lupins’ status as a pulse crop that stands up against aphanomyces root rot.

“We had a fantastic two million-acre industry in Alberta for field peas, and bam, we have aphanomyces that we have no (seed treatment) control for. We have this wonderful industry, that if we don’t figure it out, it’s going to take us down to nothing very quickly. I’ve watched it happen in France,” Davidson says.

“Lupins are absolutely resistant to aphanomyces. The difference is between ‘resistant’ and ‘tolerant.’ If you are a field pea or a lentil, aphanomyces is devastating to you; dry beans is a little bit variable. Same thing with chickpeas: you can grow chickpeas in a field with aphanomyces, and you will find lots of spores in the roots and the plant will seem fine. It may also be contributing to the population. When it comes to aphanomyces, we are looking at six to eight years before you can come back and kind of hope for the best.”

Potential markets

There also seems to be more of a thirst for a lupin market than seen during a failed push years ago. New research has shown it’s an excellent feed for livestock such as horses and dairy cattle, given its amino acid and fibre content.

According to Davidson, studies have shown a return on investment of five-to-one, with milk and butterfat production higher on a lupin feed diet than a soybean/corn diet.

“We talk about the feed industry, because we are not going to have a food industry until we have a well-established feed industry in this province for lupin,” she says, adding the feed to food industry use is about 80 to 20 per cent.

For all its positives in maintaining pulse crop diversity in rotation for soil health, fixing nitrogen, high protein levels and low disease pressure compared to other pulse crops, Davidson cautions lupins have very structured conditions to thrive, with careful site selection.

Lupins are sensitive to high-pH soils, performing poorly in alkaline soils with pH around 7.8. Lupins prefer acidic soils around 5-6.5, which in Alberta can be found more commonly the further north you go, into the Peace region. Lupins are better suited for areas with longer growing seasons, such as in southern Alberta with lower pH, and in Manitoba, with different varieties maturing in ranges of 95 to 125 days.

Odyssey or Basagran cannot be used for weed control for lupins. Edge can be used as a pre-emergent herbicide. Once you have weeds coming up in the crop, you are pretty much limited to Metribuzin.

Lupins are also a high-water crop, requiring 10-12 inches on a lighter soil, avoiding heavy clay. You can still get a decent crop with lower moisture, but a good crop of lupins will get you about 40-45 bushels per acre, Davidson says.

“If you have an area on your field that is maybe under seven (pH), then yes, maybe you can put it on there,” she says, adding economic factors also factor in with middling contracts currently of around $450 per tonne.

Davidson hopes lupins can follow the same path as field peas 25 years ago: a new crop no one grew and knew little about, it came to more prominence as soon as best practices management was improved. Its agronomic characteristics include the woody stem preventing lodging, and a strong taproot, with similar seeding and nutrient requirements to field peas.

Davidson is continuing to study the potential of lupins and is working with six different seed companies worldwide.

“These companies want lupins in Canada and they are knocking down the door,” she says, adding Australia, Denmark and France, and the U.K. have approached her.

“Over the past 10 years since I’ve been looking for and testing varieties, we have come a long way. There’s no question we need to find some varieties that are slightly more drought-tolerant. But I don’t think that’s a huge stretch. I think they’re out there. I just got to find them.”

To learn more about the variables in growing lupins, contact Davidson by email.

The post European seed firms hope lupins catch on in Prairie pulse rotations appeared first on Grainews.

Eric McLean, who farms near Oak River, Man., thinks farmers should avoid the “easy button” approach to crop production.

Adding another crop to the canola-cereal rotation may not make buckets of money this year, but it offers benefits down the road.

“With canola, we’ve seen the increases of verticillium (stripe) that’s been taking off the top end (yield) potential in canola,” said McLean, who was part of a panel discussion on pulse crops at Manitoba Ag Days in Brandon in January.

“We have to keep trying different things. Honestly, that is the solution, to have that diversification in the crop rotation.”

McLean shared the stage with growers who have tried alternative pulse crops such as faba beans, lupins, non-genetically modified soybeans and black beans.

READ MORE: Faba beans for Prairie gardens — and fields

McLean, who runs JS Henry Seeds, is convinced growing a pulse crop this year will pay off in coming years. It can reduce canola disease pathogens and improve the soil.

That sounds great, but there are practical realities: for instance, if producers aren’t seeding canola, what are they planting?

Jeff Kostuik, general manager of Verve Seeds and a former crop diversification expert in Manitoba, says that’s not the right question. Many farmers would add peas to their crop rotation, but they can’t because of issues with aphanomyces, a serious soil disease.

So, farmers need an alternative to peas. One option could be faba beans.

The crop hit a high of 120,000 acres on the Prairies in 2021. Since then, acres have dipped to around 80,000.

That’s partly explained by export demand. Canada exported 38,000 and 28,000 tonnes of faba beans, respectively, in 2019 and 2020.

Those sales have declined, and domestic feed use is now more important.

“Canadian export performance over the past six years shows that fababean usage is increasingly a domestic affair, with only two major destinations: Egypt and the United States,” Marlene Boersch of Mercantile Consulting wrote recently.

“Most Canadian-grown fababeans are primarily used domestically for pet food and livestock feed.”

Faba bean acres and production may have dropped in Canada, but there’s a mood of optimism right now.

A seed dealer at Ag Days said more growers are inquiring about faba beans, and acres will likely jump in 2025.

Part of that optimism is coming from the food industry.

There is growing interest from food manufacturers who want to use faba beans as a source of protein.

To tap into that opportunity, Canadian plant breeders have developed varieties that are low in vicine and convicine, a pair of compounds that can cause severe health problems in a small percentage of people.

For that population, consuming faba beans with vicine/convicine can damage red blood cells and trigger a serious disease called favism.

Canada’s faba bean industry is transitioning to low vicine/convicine varieties, which could make a world of difference.

“That barricade of the anti-nutritional, the vicine/convicine, was so important in the breeding efforts to eliminate that (issue),” Kostuik says.

“It has certainly opened things up.”

Faba bean prices are decent this winter, around $10 to $11 per bushel.

Top-end yields of 100 bu. per acre are possible in Western Canada, but 60-70 bu. are more reasonable targets, Kostuik says.

One of the keys for higher yields is early seeding. It’s important to get them in the ground as soon as possible to avoid hot weather during the flowering period.

“It’s a big bean. You want to get it in early. It takes in a lot of moisture at the beginning of the season,” Kostuik says.

“The past research (shows) seeding date is one of the biggest things for yield.”

It’s likely that a farmer, growing faba beans for the first time, won’t hit a home run on yield.

However, that’s acceptable because a diverse rotation has other benefits, McLean says.

“If we can elevate the two following crops (after) these pulse crop options, we can recoup any marginal losses … in the pulse crop,” he says.

“If you get an extra five or 10 bu. of canola … that will easily offset (the pulse crop).”

The post Faba beans could help ease rotation pressure on canola appeared first on Grainews.

Researchers at the University of Saskatchewan are seeking new uses for pulse starches in the food and biomaterial sectors.

Byproduct market research aims to reduce food waste, increase efficiency and add more value to crops grown on the Prairies.

While protein is often the goal for pulse crops in Western Canada, starch makes up more of the seed.

“When you look at the composition in the pulses, it’s about 40 to 50 per cent of pulse starch,” says Mehmet Tulbek, president of the Saskatchewan Food Industry Development Centre.

“So the protein is only 20, 22 to 24 per cent. When people sell it as a whole (grain), that’s a different story. But when they fractionate, the protein is more valuable. Then the second value is the fibre and the lowest value is the starch portion.”

The market value of protein to starch is now about 21 to one. As more uses for the starch are found, the value for it and for pulses as a whole could increase.

READ MORE: Research lights up pulse flours’ specific properties

Today, the most common use for pulse starches is as an additive in animal feed, although there are possible avenues for expansion as an ingredient in batters, breading, pastas, Chinese noodles and other snack foods.

“We’re creating this really high-value product in protein, but then we’ve got this starch left over,” says Amber Johnson, director of marketing and communications at Saskatchewan Pulse Growers.

The farm group is one of the industry stakeholders supporting research into pulse starches. Johnson is also on the national market development team working with Pulse Canada, which is focused on pulse market development and diversification.

In Manitoba alone, peas went from fewer than 100,000 planted acres a year to 191,400 acres reported this spring. That was helped by the entry of pea protein giant Roquette, which chose Portage la Prairie for its major pea protein plant.

“As interest in pea protein grew, it became very obvious to us that we needed better, higher-value uses for that starch byproduct and that’s kind of where this (research) and some other projects came to be,” Johnson says.

“And so, we’re one of several contributors to this particular project, in hopes to find more, higher-value uses for that starch component of the fractionation process.”

University of Saskatchewan research has shown that pulse starch has strong gelling capabilities, making it a strong contender as an ingredient for adding texture or firmness, or acting as a stabilizer in food. In a product like Chinese glass noodles, the starch could allow structure to set quicker and provide a firmer texture.

That same trait has applications for biomaterials. Depending on type of starch and what is mixed with it, a conductive hydrogel can be formed. In one case, a mixture of pea starch, polyvinyl alcohol, water and salt created a gel that was flexible and tensile even at -20 C.

Other potential materials include sheer films and packaging useful for pharmaceutical and industrial applications.

Pulse starch is also being considered for use in low-glycemic foods for human consumption. While this aspect of the research is ongoing, a modified dough made from the pea starch and water showed a reduction in glycemic response with human subjects.

In 2020, Pulse Canada and market research firm Euromonitor worked to price-index pulse starch according to end-use application. They found its use in paper and packaging could double the starch’s value, and industries such as bioplastics could nearly triple it. Uses in food and sports nutrition, pharmaceuticals and nutraceuticals also have potential high value.

“There’s so many places that this could go and there’s a lot of factors to consider,” Johnson says. “Some of these really high-value markets have low volume because you only need a little bit of it to do what you’re trying to do. But that’s all a component of our market development strategy, which is all about diversifying (for sustainable demand).”

Tulbek notes that, while the entire world grows pulses and many countries have their own processing facilities, Canada can pack a major punch in the sector.

“Western Canada, they have the sustainably produced pulses, really high-quality pulses, that are ready for the marketplace,” Tulbek says.

Several processing and manufacturing companies across Canada and the United States use Canadian-grown pulses. Many are primarily focused on peas, but are getting into fababean and lentil processing as well.

However, the growth and market for pulse starches is ultimately determined by consumers.

“That speed (of growth) is really defined by the success of the product and the market acceptability,” Tulbek says. “If the market likes it, if consumers like it, or if there’s industrial application … it may be faster.”

He says he’s seen strong growth in pulse starch utilization over the last 10 years. Johnson adds that part of the growth is end-user education to increase interest and awareness about pulse possibilities.

“The more opportunities for these products that we can create, (that) means that there’ll be sustainable demand, which is really important for our producers,” she says.

The post Starch market search yields results for pulses appeared first on Grainews.

Chitra Sivakumar, a doctoral researcher at the University of Manitoba, is one of the people trying to make that happen. In a recent project, she and her colleagues investigated the best uses for pulse flours.

Four types of flours made the cut for consideration and comparison: chickpeas, navy beans, green lentils and yellow peas.

Different pulses will be more suited to different flour purposes, Sivakumar notes.

“Let’s say chickpea bread has a typical flavour. Not everyone will be liking it, but we can make a good pasta out of it,” she says. “So, each pulse has its own characteristic that cannot be made universal for making all the baked products or the extruded products.”

READ MORE: Starch market search yields results for pulses

The interest in such research for pulses is growing, the Manitoba researcher notes. The market for plant-based protein, while not always smooth, is still drawing attention and investment into research.

From an environmental perspective, the nitrogen-fixing crops are attractive, particularly since the federal government has asked farmers to slice nitrogen fertilizer emissions by 2030.

Other benefits, touted by industry groups such as Pulse Canada, include their nutritive profile of high protein, low fat and high fibre. Industry proponents have pitched pulse consumption for weight control and prevention of cardiovascular diseases.

“The value-added opportunities will also come up, as raw pulses can be processed into premium pulse flours, which have distinct functionalities and distinct properties,” Sivakumar says.

Many are also known to grow in dry conditions, making them a good fit for parts of the Prairies, and they capture carbon. According to Pulse Canada, 10 million acres of pulses can capture 4.1 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions annually.

To see how pulse flours could be better optimized for food use, Sivakumar and her colleagues used the Canadian Light Source (CLS) synchrotron facility at the University of Saskatchewan.

CLS uses powerful magnets and radio frequencies to accelerate electrons to nearly the speed of light. This produces intense X-ray, ultraviolet and infrared light beams that researchers can use to observe microscopic details of samples.

In their work in Manitoba, researchers were unable to see all the details of the pulse seeds’ structure. Using the CLS sped up the process, enabling results in seconds, Sivakumar says.

“We were able to analyze the micro- and molecular structure of pulse flours with exceptional clarity because of CLS’s brilliant light source… It just makes life easier, because of the detail, the exceptional clarity, and details of the data, which we wanted to get for our samples.”

Now the team better understands the different properties in each pulse type. They identified skin properties, particle sizes, protein content and starch properties, all of which are essential to learning which pulse flour could be used for specific products.

The hope is that new understanding can be applied so pulses in food applications can better meet consumer demands. This will open doors for fellow researchers to build off their work, Sivakumar notes.

For the pulse industry, “this customization will allow them to develop specialized food products, such as gluten-free baked products or high protein snacks or plant-based dairy alternatives, which can cater to the growing consumer demand for the healthier and more sustainable option,” she says.

The research also influences pulse flour milling standards. Milling was an area that Sivakumar also investigated, with the help of Cereals Canada, to explore what different milling techniques would produce when used on pulses.

The post Research lights up pulse flours’ specific properties appeared first on Grainews.

Tyler Wist, a field crops entomologist with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada in Saskatoon, spoke about the threat aphids can pose to some crops at the recent Saskatchewan Agronomy Update conference.

Wist says aphid populations can “explode” in a short period of time and can pose a serious risk to small grain and pulse crops if left unchecked. In 2024, his department received multiple reports of aphid damage from several regions of the province.

A large part of the threat aphids pose is the fact that they reproduce quickly and can build up their populations very fast. For example, pea aphid populations in pulse crops can double in a matter of just five or six days.

“That’s why I say don’t turn your back on aphids. You can check them one week and then you come back the next week and all those aphids have reproduced. All those aphids that were there before, they’ve now had a chance to feed on your crop, plus now you got all these new aphids” causing damage, he says.

“If you have aphids in your field, keep an eye on them.”

The three most common types of crop-damaging aphids found in Saskatchewan are pea aphids, English grain aphids and bird cherry-oat aphids. English grain and bird cherry-oat aphids are most commonly found in small grains such as barley and oats while pea aphids favour pulse crops including faba beans, lentils and peas.

Aphids cause damage by sucking sap from within the plant. In the case of pulses, if the plant becomes stressed during the flowering stage, it can drop its flowers and seed pods fail to develop as a result.

Wist’s advice to growers is to start scouting for aphids in pulses and small grains by the second week of July, as that’s when their populations typically start to grow. English grain aphids can usually be found in the head of a cereal plant where the seed is starting to fill. Bird cherry-oat aphids can be found in the head but other parts of the cereal plant as well. Their populations can be patchy, which is why Wist says it’s recommended that between 50 and 100 plant heads are checked during scouting.

Make sure they’re dead

There are several measures growers can take to help control aphid populations in their fields.

One of the methods researchers in Saskatchewan have been studying is the impact of plant timing on aphid populations. That includes early planting (mid-May), medium planting (late May) and late planting (early June). Preliminary results indicate crops seeded early tend to have fewer problems with aphids compared to those seeded later in the season.

“Those (late) ones always yielded far worse then than the earlier-planted ones,” says Wist. “Whether or not it was due to aphids, or had something to do with not enough heat units or degree days to get the yield out, we don’t know for sure. But every year the late-planted ones yielded terribly.”

To spray or not to spray is a question many farmers ask when dealing with aphids. Wist points out it can depend on the type of crop being grown. In the case of small grains, once the plant has reached the soft dough stage and the grain has filled, aphids can’t cause any more damage to the plant, so spraying is no longer required.

READ MORE: Keeping aphids in check, online and off

It’s more difficult to assess in pulse crops, he adds, since there’s no evidence to indicate a “stop point” where aphids can’t do any more damage to a plant, and in peas, the older stages have a higher tolerance for pea aphids, as shown by a higher economic threshold.

If you’re going to spray for aphids, Wist recommends conducting a follow-up inspection of the field that has been sprayed, to make sure the pesticide that was used had the desired effect.

“When you spend all that time and money to spray your field and nothing happens to the population when it’s sprayed, it’s frustrating,” he says. “Go back and check after the label says you can go back in the field. Go back and check to make sure that those aphids actually died when (you) sprayed.”

Wist says one area of concern regarding the use of pesticides to control aphids is that they appear to be developing some resistance to some pyrethroids, including lambda-cyhalothrin.

Prairie predators

Beneficial insects can also play an important role in controlling aphids in the field, according to Wist.

Golden-eyed lacewing flies are ferocious predators that feast on pea aphids and kill them by sucking out their innards. Braconid wasp larvae like to gorge themselves on aphids. They kill hosts by laying their eggs inside them, which then hatch with the offspring eating the aphid from the inside out, then cutting a hole in the back end of the host to escape. Lady beetles are also effective aphid killers and can eat as many as 50 to 85 aphids in a day.

Recent research conducted at the University of Calgary indicates one of the spinoff benefits of beneficial pollinating insects being present in a field is that they can cause a spike to yield in many cases due in part to the cross-pollination they promote. That cross-pollination can also help a crop stand to set more evenly and mature more consistently.

Wist says one way farmers can boost the presence of beneficial insects in their fields is to convert unproductive areas into refuges that can help attract them. However, he cautions growers “not to put all their eggs in one basket” and to use whatever integrated pest management tools are available to them to control aphids.

Aphids ahoy?

Predicting when aphids could be a problem is difficult to do, since they tend to migrate from one location to another due to winds. In addition, Wist’s recent data indicate pea aphids may be overwintering on perennials such as alfalfa. The good news in that case, Wist says, is that cold winter temperatures could keep those populations under control.

As for whether aphids could be a threat in 2025, Wist says that will depend largely on weather conditions during the growing season. Aphids tend to prefer mild temperatures around 20 C which is typically when they thrive. Aphids won’t reproduce and can quickly die out when average temperatures are sustained around 30 C or warmer, he adds — like what happened in 2021 under July’s “heat dome.”

The post Attend against aphids appeared first on Grainews.

“The decision to cease operations of the Vanscoy manufacturing facility was made after a strategic review of this business,” the company said.

The company said it expects to sell the facility, which employed approximately 20 people.

Ingredion, based in Westchester, Illinois, produces sweeteners, starches, nutrition ingredients and other biomaterials.

Verdient Foods Inc. opened the Vanscoy plant in 2018. Ingredion entered a joint venture with the Saskatchewan company late that year in a bid to expand pulse processing.

In late 2020, Ingredion took over sole ownership of Verdient Foods, according to a news release.

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The product had its full launch this year and Health Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA) has now approved Zetigo for use also in field peas, chickpeas and faba beans.

Zetigo’s active ingredient, Adavelt active, was also launched last year, billed as “a novel target site of action with no cross-resistance to other modes of action, making it a strong resistance management tool.”

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Canadian pea exports in June came in at only 50,452 tonnes, roughly half of what moved the previous month, with Bangladesh the largest importer accounting for 13,682 tonnes, according to StatCan. Year-to-date pea movement through 11 months of the marketing year of 2.381 million tonnes was in line with the 2.404 million tonnes at the same point in 2022/23. Yellow peas account for just over three-quarters of the pea exports.

China holds the top spot for Canadian pea exports through June at 999,100 tonnes, with India in second place at 817,500 tonnes. India was nonexistent as a pea buyer in 2022/23, with cuts to their import tariffs accounting for the increased movement this year.

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Delivered prices for green peas across the Prairies ranged from C$12.50 to C$14.21 per bushel as of July 26, according to Prairie Ag Hotwire. The latter price was down C$4.27 from last month but only four cents lower than last year. For yellow peas, delivered prices ranged from C$9.75 to C$11.40/bu., down C$1.60 from last month and down C$1.40 from last year.

Shawn Madsen, operations manager of Southland Pulse near Estevan, Sask., went on a recent road trip looking at fields hundreds of kilometres south of Estevan, including some in the United States. He said crops look “better than average” for the most part and he anticipates more peas to be available than in the past few years.

“It’s only natural when you see prices decline when that happens,” he added.
However, some areas were affected by the recent hot and dry conditions in much of Saskatchewan.

“There are some pockets that didn’t get as much rain (west and south of Estevan). Those producers (over there) you kind of feel for because with those prices that are declining and they don’t have much to sell, they are going to hurt the most.”

Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) estimated 2023-24 ending stocks for peas at 225,000 tonnes in its monthly estimates released on July 22. However, an expected 691,000-tonne rise in production for 2024-25 at 3.3 million tonnes would raise carryout to 440,000 tonnes.

Madsen said buyers are being “patient” with the new crop.

“They’ve seen this crop grow and mature and it looks like it’s going to be okay,” he said. “They didn’t want to go out and buy more in fear of paying too much. They’re watching and waiting. I think there’s going to be good demand but the market’s going to have to figure out where it looks for both the buyer and the seller.”

In drier areas of the province, some growers have already harvested their peas and the rest of the province may follow suit soon.

“We’re only probably days away from seeing a lot of combines rolling around this area,” Madsen said.

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