Category: Pulse School

We all know that pulling a roller behind the tractor in wet conditions is akin to rolling dough without flour, with one key difference: you likely never have to park your embarrassing, dough-covered rolling pin beside the highway for all to see. Conversely, in dry conditions, a roller can actually pulverize the soil, increasing the… Read More

Each seed treatment product protects against a specific list of diseases or insects, but it’s the overall impact of early season protection on stand establishment that has much more far-reaching impacts than simply avoiding disease infection. In this Pulse School episode, Wes Anderson, agronomy manager for Richardson Pioneer, does outline which seed treatments will protect… Read More

Pulses are well-known for their nitrogen-fixing capacity but not for their competitiveness. Weed pressure can really knock back yield, a situation made worse by a thin stand or early-season disease. Two key seeding management strategies for pulses are seeding rates based on an optimal plant stand count and disease control planning. Achieving the best established… Read More

Sliding pulses into rotation is a great way to bump up your crop rotation benefits, adds marketing and cash flow options and also adds nitrogen credits for subsequent crops. All that being said, the delivery of that added N is only possible if pulse seed is properly inoculated ahead of going in the ground or… Read More

The Canadian pulse industry can be proud of what it has accomplished in a relatively short time. From a tiny slice of the acres, to a set crop in many farmers’ rotation, pulses are a made-in-Canada success story. SEE MORE PULSE SCHOOL EPISODES Pulse growers have enjoyed steady growth of their industry and international markets… Read More

Lentil struggled in some areas this year, as areas of Saskatchewan still had a excess moisture or the hangover from it to deal with. Still other areas were very dry, or suffered from extreme weather. Of note, fields with tight lentil/wheat rotations certainly suffered lower yields versus fields with at least one year of an… Read More

In the last Pulse School episode, Dr. Bert Vandenberg, lentil and faba bean breeder at the University of Saskatchewan, outlined the market development challenges facing the faba bean industry. He noted, however, that the varieties farmers have to choose from are already a very good fit for much of the prairies. Duane Ransome, member relations… Read More

Faba bean, a very-high protein pulse crop, did very well under 2012 growing conditions. In fact, in many of the areas where the pea crop struggled, faba beans did quite well. Faba bean averages around 30% protein, making it an attractive feed ingredient. It’s also a common food ingredient in countries other than Canada. Bert… Read More

The feel-good message about how healthy pulses are for us isn’t new, but those who struggle to eat beans, peas, lentils and chickpeas in their whole form may be able to include more of them in their diet without changing the foods they already eat. That’s the scope of a four-year pulse flour milling and… Read More

The economics of farming naturally put “high yield” at the top of every plant breeders list, but something like yield is interwoven with a number of other factors. Just to allow a plant to maintain its intrinsic yield potential you have to develop it to be able to compete with weeds, stand well and have… Read More