Category: Pulse School

Children have enjoyed playing with nesting dolls for years and years. You know the ones — where opening one doll leads to finding another, smaller doll inside. What does a delightful children’s toy have to do with pea aphids in lentil crops? Let’s explain. Pea aphids are parthenogenic and much like the beloved nesting dolls,… Read More

Pulses are well known for their ability to fix their own nitrogen in-crop, but some farmers choose to add starter nitrogen at seeding. Is it worth it? While pulses have the ability to fix their own nitrogen, they may need a little help at the start of the year to bridge the gap between seed… Read More

Integrating pulses into a cropping rotation can be a great way to break pest and disease cycles, improve soil fertility, and diversify farm income while reducing fertilizer costs. Peas and lentils are a common sight in the western Canadian Prairie pulse growing regions, however the smaller-acreage faba beans and even lupins offer farmers new options… Read More

Cool, wet conditions, as seen in much of Western Canada during the early part of the 2024 growing season, are favourable for ascochyta, also called mycosphaerella blight, in peas. The first step in taking action is to make sure that an infection is caused by mycosphaerella and not a bacterial blight, for which fungicide is… Read More

Different pulse crop types need a different weed-free window to reach maximum yield potential. Targeting weeds early — sometime as early as the year before — might be the best way to ensure that yield potential, but that’s not always possible. What’s the best course of action for in-crop weed control? To unpack the various… Read More

To pulse producers, grasshoppers represent both a significant challenge and a potential threat. With last year being hot and dry across the Prairies, growers are wondering what the current growing season will hold for these resilient crop consumers. Farmers and agronomists alike hope that the cool, wet spring might keep pulse crops safe from the… Read More

After years of dry to extremely dry conditions in the pulse growing regions of Saskatchewan, it’s unlikely anyone is going to complain about a wet spring. The shift from dry to more average or even wet conditions creates some fantastic yield potential for growers, but it also creates a perfect environment for root rots, including… Read More

Once peas have emerged and get growing, it’s time to scout for pea leaf weevil feeding. Feeding by adult pea leaf weevils creates notches on the clam shell leaves, but it’s the damage done by larvae feeding on the roots that causes economic losses in pea crops. Pea leaf weevil is not an issue in… Read More

Each pulse species requires certain bacteria, usually a rhizobium inoculant, in order for plants to fix their own nitrogen. Once nodules form on the plant roots, those little factories can provide much of the crop’s N needs, but there are several decisions farmers have to make at seeding to ensure excellent nodulation, and there are… Read More

While fungicide resistance evolves similarly to herbicide resistance, it can be more challenging to assess given the patchy nature of disease infection across a field, the decreased incidence of disease in dry years, and the multiple lifecycles some pulse diseases complete in a year. Bethany Wyatt, senior technical service specialist with BASF, says that Group… Read More