Pulse School: Three great reasons to put a pulse in rotation

The Pulse School on realagriculture.com is brought to you by basf. I'm Amber Bell, and this is Real Agriculture here today with Robin Davidson. For this episode of Pulse School, we're going to be discussing not only how pulses can fit into your rotation, but also what they do for the soil and ultimately which consumers are consuming them. So welcome, Robin. It's great to see you. Thank you, Amber. To get us started, where can pulses fit into a grower's rotation? Okay, Well, I would say, Amber, that pulses can fit into any grower's rotation. Okay. So I think we, we've talked a lot about the benefits of pulses in rotation, and I think the best place would be in between a cereal crop. Obviously, in my mind, based on some of the research and based on some of the, you know, anecdotal information, it would be best to put a pulse crop in before a cereal and then after a cereal. Again, I mean, you can always put pulses in before or after a canola or another broad, but it just doesn't work as well economically and disease wise and things like that. So I think there's a lot of potential for pulses in rotation. No matter where you farm and no matter what your rotation is, I think it could fit nicely. Now, what about rotating different varieties of pulses? So fava beans, peas, where does that fit and how can growers make decisions on that? Okay, well, I would say it would depend on where you're farming. So in certain areas of the prairies, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, wherever you're farming, there are certain pulses that are going to fit better. If you are in an area that tends to be on the drier side, tend to have some lighter soils, then obviously I would probably push you maybe towards lentils. If you have those conditions where lentils will thrive. Lentils in the wrong place, of course, are going to enter a lot of, a lot of problems. They're going to maybe grow too much. You're going to have disease setting in if there's too much moisture, if the organic matter is really, really high and lentils just don't quite as, well, flip it the complete other way. Fava beans, baba beans love that environment. They love being in the, you know, the cooler soils, the wetter areas, they can tolerate some of that. They can, they can be in the heavier soils as well. So if you're in an area where you have quite a bit of moisture and you have heavier soils, maybe faba beans would be your answer as opposed to lentils. So that would be kind of the Two ends of the spectrum. And then there's other options in there. Of course, there's philpea. Philpea is by far the most popular one. And I think depending on the field, they can fit pretty much anywhere. By far, they're the most adaptable to north to south, you know, wetter versus drier. They have limitations like any crop does. But if it's too dry, of course they're not going to do well. If it's too wet, of course they're not going to do well. But if you have the proper field environment where you've, you know, controlled your weeds and they have a good plant establishment and they're doing well and you're, you know, monitoring them for the diseases and the insects and all those things, then I think peas probably would fit pretty much anywhere. Pretty much anywhere. Again, being careful and putting a cavity on that. Now, would there be value, let's say you grow peas in your cereal rotation, would there be a value in. Maybe this year I'm growing peas, maybe the next three or four years I'm going to grow fava beans instead. Or is it fine to just stick with peas? I would say, given some of the disease pressures that we're seeing right now. I think everybody's heard of aphanomyces. It's a bad word in the pulse in the industry right now. And I think based on that, I think if you can put another pulse into your rotation other than peas or lentils, because both of those are quite susceptible and spread out the risk, I would do so. So if you're in an area where you grow a lot of peas, it's drier, it's lighter, and lentils are not necessarily an option. Maybe take a look at another pulse. Can you grow chickpeas? Is that viable for you? Is there another pulse crop? You know, lupins is one that's come onto the scene that we're really trying to get some tract and doing a lot of research on. So does lupins fit in that area? It would depend on that, Amber. It's about kind of taking a look at your farm and taking a look at the different pulse crop options and deciding where can I fit this in? And you know, talking to your elevators and, you know, people that are helped market you grain to see what you can do with that and then pencil it out. Now, a lot of farmers will obviously have heard and know of the benefits of growing pulses, but why don't you just briefly touch upon some of the really important benefits of having a pulse in rotation? Okay. I would say right now, given our landscape, they are a relatively low input crop. You're not putting nitrogen down, they're fixing their own nitrogen. That is fantastic for the field and the soil health. Because of that, they have other attributes. They are quite water use efficient. So therefore they leave moisture behind. They're not deep rooted some like some of our cereals and canola for sure. So that leaves more water available. The tilt of the soil just kind of tends to be healthier. After a pulse crop, it's really difficult maybe to put a finger on exactly what's going on, but it's just a, it's, it's an effect of the microbial action and the biological that's going on in there. So just soil health in general, there's no way you can argue that pulses don't improve your soil health and break up your diseases. We've got, you know, we talked of myces, but we got clubroot, we've got pizarium, we've got other diseases that are, you know, in the background. So every time you put a pulse in rotation and you take it out of canola or barley or wheat, now you're improving your chances for diseases in the following crop. When you go back in. So, so many, so many. When it comes to consumer angle, pulses have kind of come up the scale maybe on what consumers might choose. So talk to me a little bit about the consumer angle, where we're at with pulses and which consumers are purchasing and looking at eating our pulse products. Well, I think consumers right now are very interested in where their food is coming from. And I think they're paying a lot more attention. And so they're looking at the environmental impacts of the food that they have. They're looking at the water that the food they eat. You know, they're starting to think about those things that we didn't used to think about before, necessarily so. And they are asking those questions. And pulses fit really well. If you are in that space and you are trying to do better for your family, pulses are very, very healthy. They're relatively inexpensive. They fit really, really well into some of the alternative diets too. We have our vegans and our vegetarians and we have some immigrant populations that are coming in and they have, you know, basically a history of vegan, you know, and vegetarian. So they're very interested in pulses and they're very interested in how they can improve their health. And so it's a good news storey, all the way across. You can talk to any of their concerns. And pulses will hit the mark. And there's been more of a move towards processed products with pulses. Can you speak to that a little? Sure. I think for a while we thought, hey, you know what, like let's start putting, you know, some pulses out there instead of meat. I don't think that's gone so well. I think people are interested and they would like to do that. But I think what's happening is there's been a shift a little bit in the industry and in the food, with the food companies to not necessarily replace those products, but to just get more pulses into our food period. So we're adding pulses into our baked products, we're adding pulses into soups and some of the basic things that we use to start with, we're putting it in our granola bars, we're putting pulses into our snacks and we have pop up snacks. And so I think as a, as a whole we're starting to see protein start showing up in places where it wasn't necessarily showing before. And again, it's that whole target of a healthy population where they can eat pulses, get more protein, healthy protein. By the way, you know, diabetics can eat pulses because it doesn't increase your glycemic index and things like that. So it's just such a good storey. It's hard not to get excited about pulses in every aspect. And it fits really well on a plate with beef. Yes, exactly. They're easy to cook. They're easy to cook. And there's, you know, multiple companies, you know, I'll speak to the Alberta Pulse Growers because we're in Alberta. You know, they have a dietitian who spends a lot of time and energy like making sure that, you know, we have easy recipes and that people become more familiar with them. I think it's like, well, pulses are hard. Well, actually they're not. You just have to put a little bit of thought into it. Maybe we're not cooking as much at home, maybe we're buying a little bit more products where we're using the hellofresh, you know, apps and things like that, or skip the dishes or things like that. So I think it's happening all across the industry. I think those companies and food companies and restaurants and things like that, they're all trying to get more pulses and more protein into our diet because it's just, it's just really good, really good and healthy for all of us. Well, I want to thank you so much for your time. Awesome. And that was Robin Davidson on Real Agriculture.