Your long term partner in pulses. Nirvana® Signum®
Transcription
Your long term partner in pulses. Nirvana® Signum®
PULSE THE MAGAZINE SUMMER 2016 P G RO OFFICIAL JOURNAL OF THE PGRO Your long term partner in pulses. Nirvana ® for the key weeds Signum ® for the key diseases Contact us at; BASF plc PO Box 4 Earl Road Cheadle Hulme SK8 6QG Nirvana and Signum are registered trademark of BASF. Use plant protection products safely. Always read the label and product information before use. For further product information including warning phrases and symbols refer to www.agricentre.basf.co.uk WINTER BEANS PERFECT FOR YOUR ROTATION Yield benefit for the following wheat crop Low growing cost Good break crop gross margin Good opportunity to control grass weeds Ready markets for feed and export use NEW W I N T E R The leading large seeded export bean with proven quality Early maturing variety, for the North, West and export B E A N The highest yielding variety on the 2016 PGRO list For more information visit www.senova.uk.com or talk to your merchant. What does that mean? Look it up …! Every so often I become aware that a word appears rather more frequently than normal. It becomes trendy for journalists to use it in verbal and audio exchanges, as if it is a challenge to the rest of us to understand what they are talking about. For the last few months the word of the moment appeared to be paradigm, frequently incorporated into the phrase paradigm shift. It was all over the place, and whilst I like to think that I have a reasonable grasp of the English language and was familiar with the word, I could not for the life of me recall a precise definition from my memory banks. The use of paradigm has faded almost as quickly as it surfaced and in the last few days appears to have been replaced in journalist’s lexicon by dystopian, a word I guess many will associate with Aldous Huxley. Roger Vickers Chief Executive Thinking about these minor linguistic challenges reminded me of the question and answer that form the title of this editorial. My father firmly believed that if my brother or I were to learn anything we should research and read it for ourselves if it were to stick. So inevitably when we didn’t understand a word and we would ask “what does that mean?” we would be met with the refrain “Look it up in the dictionary.” A good habit, I guess, and one that has stood me reasonably well. Of course, now we almost all carry around tablets or smart phones, ever-present tools that almost instantly provide definitions or meanings to the uninitiated, so perhaps the question “what does that mean?” (revealing one’s ignorance) gets uttered less frequently. Another word that has found itself appearing in front of me on an increasingly regular basis over the last 3 years is falafel. Until I became involved in the pulse industry I confess I had never heard of it and I challenge any of you to immediately describe it. Falafel turns out to be a rather delicious snack consisting of a small croquette made with faba bean flour or ground chickpeas, seasoned with salt and spices. It is the destination of a significant proportion of the UK bean crop, especially that exported to Egypt - and with the internationalisation of food, it is becoming a food trend in the UK too. Not only is it delicious and highly nutritious, it is low in fat and very satisfying. Now with 2016 being the International Year of Pulses, it is fantastic news that at the recent London Falafel Festival the Egyptian guest chefs of the Zooba restaurant chain in Cairo won the public vote for the best tasting falafel - and they made it with UK produced faba beans! (See the special IYP feature on pages 8-9 of this issue). Hopefully, this is just the start of a great falafel boom and a massive increase in the UK consumption of delicious UK produce. It is very easy to make at home and an Egyptian recipe for the ‘world’s best falafel recipe’ can be found at www.theguardian.com/ lifeandstyle/2015/mar/20/worlds-best-falafel-recipe-henry-dimbleby-back-to-basics. Go on – have a go! P G RO Of course, once in a while delicious opportunities for harmless payback on one’s parents arise, so when I mentioned to my octogenarian father that I had attended the London Falafel festival, he asked, “falafel, what is that?” You can guess my reply. Let’s hope for all of us that the impact is positive and endures. Roger Vickers, Chief Executive Contents 04 Market Prospect Competitiveness and quality remain key for 2016 harvest. 10 Chris Collings, President of BEPA 06 Pulse Agronomy Pea and bean weevil control update. 12 Becky Ward, PGRO Principal Technical Officer. Grower Story A Lancashire spring bean grower clocks up impressive yields on moss land. Alan Webster. PGRO Pulse Research Foot rot disease in peas – tests to assess risk levels in soil prior to pea planting. Dr Lea Wiesel, PGRO Plant Pathologist. 08 International Year of Pulses The London Falafel Festival and updates on this year’s UN event. Franek Smith, Vice President of BEPA. 14 Collaborative Pulse Research Sustainable protein production using faba beans: an overview on routes to commercialisation by beans4feed project partners. Pete Iannetta of James Hutton Institute in Dundee. Diary Dates Vining Pea Field Day Nocton, near Dunston, 21 June Pulse Crop Field Day Stubton, near Newark 30 June CropTec East of England Showground, Peterborough 29 & 30 November PGRO, Great North Road, Thornhaugh, Peterborough PE8 6HJ Tel 01780 782585 Fax 01780 783993 Email [email protected] Web pgro.org ISSN 1758-3543 Chief Executive: Roger Vickers Principal Technical Officers: Stephen Belcher, Jim Scrimshaw, Becky Ward Plant Pathologist: Dr Lea Wiesel For editorial and advertising contact: Sue Bingham at PGRO on 01780 782585 Published by Ahead PR aheadpr.eu Design graphicgene.co.uk Reading The Pulse Magazine in conjuction with other PGRO publications is now recognised by BASIS and carries 2 CPD points t: 01780 782585 www.pgro.org e: [email protected] 03 Market Prospect Competitiveness and quality remain key for 2016 harvest After the slow start to spring those pulse crops drilled in the last five weeks are emerging well, even if slightly behind last year at this stage. Reports of spring bean ground being left fallow further north due to extreme, and therefore undrillable, conditions have led to trade speculation that the total bean area could be 7-8% down rather than the 10-15% increase broadcast earlier in the year. Chris Collings, President of BEPA The area is therefore forecast to be in the region of 218K Ha total of beans and peas, with a 80/20 split beans/peas. Certainly in East Anglia the pea area seems to have increased with a number of new growers on board with peas for the first time. While Egypt has been an active consumer of spring beans again this season the ability to finance new purchases (or even take older ones) has led to slow movement of old contracts and little interest in new business. Containers that have arrived in Egypt in recent months are still sitting quay side, awaiting for collection from end buyers. This has resulted in a number of remaining parcels of spring beans in the UK that would otherwise have potentially made human consumption grade finding their way into domestic feed bean homes. Renewed interest in old crop green peas has caused values to lift and remaining parcels have found their way into the market, at values some £15-20 better than seen at the low point in the last six months. Deliveries of contracted marrowfats from harvest 2015 continue at high values with no problems, emphasising the importance of contracting these when and where possible. As a result contracted marrowfat peas will produce some of the highest gross margins seen from harvest 2015. Poor aphid control last year led to a number of pea mosaic virus issues, resulting in large reductions in value of in particular marrowfat peas. In a year with a larger area of marrowfat peas growers need to pay attention to this issue and carefully monitor and treat accordingly. As we reach the mid way point of International Year of Pulses 2016 (IYP) it has been a refreshing reminder for those of us involved about the benefits of pulses both in the UK and wider world production. It is useful to remember that pulses use up to 260 times less water to produce 1kg of Daal (split peas and lentils) compared to 1kg of beef, and 86 times less water to produce than an equivalent 1kg of chicken. While not a major concern in the UK, water usage in other parts of the globe is a major consideration. Described as a superfood, pulses have zero cholesterol, low fat content, are gluten free and are high in iron and zinc along with other nutritional benefits. The message during IYP is that pulses are nutritious, sustainable and affordable and in the current climate concerned with healthy eating, this is more pertinent than ever. 04 t: 01780 782585 www.pgro.org e: [email protected] THE COOLEST THE COOLEST BEAN BEAN ON ON THE SCENE THE SCENE • • www.lgseeds.co.uk/tundra @lgseedsuk Rothwell, Market Rasen, Tel: 01472 371471 Lincolnshire, LN7 6DT [email protected] t: 01780 782585 www.pgro.org e: [email protected] 05 Pulse Agronomy Pea and bean weevil control update The pea and bean weevil (Sitona lineatus) is a damaging insect pest of legumes in the UK. The insect is 4-5 mm long with a narrow, brown body, angled antennae and a blunt snout Becky Ward Principal Technical Officer It emerges from its over-wintering sites, which are surrounding hedgerows and field margins, when temperatures reach about 12°C and crawls into crops. The pest doesn’t fly until temperature exceeds 18°C and damage is usually first seen on headlands as the weevils walk into the crop. Small u-shaped notches around the leaf margins of peas and beans indicate that weevils are feeding in crops, and although adults continue feeding on foliage for some time, in good conditions the plants grow away from leaf damage as weather becomes warmer. In cool growing conditions, damage to foliage can outstrip plant growth. Early sown spring crops are the most susceptible to attack as they are not well established when weevils first emerge. Eggs are laid around the base of the plant and larvae feed on the nitrogen fixing root nodules below ground, reducing available nitrogen and allowing soil-borne pathogens to infect roots. Damage to root nodules can cause considerable reduction in yield, particularly in crops grown for dry harvest, as nitrogen deficiency may affect seed weight. This effect may be more severe when weevil damage occurs in conjunction with other stress factors such as drought or poor soil conditions. When larval attack is severe yield can be reduced by 25%. In recent years growers have experienced increasing difficulty controlling pea and bean weevil, leading to concerns that weevils are becoming resistant to pyrethroid products, and urgent work to understand the nature and extent of insecticide resistance in the pea and bean weevil was carried out in response to this. Live adult samples, collected from some of the main UK arable regions in 2015, were screened in glass vial assays to assess resistance to pyrethroids at field rates of two pyrethroid active ingredients. The resistance was distributed widely, although in all cases was partial. The mechanism of resistance is not clear at present with results of bioassays suggesting that pea and bean weevils were carrying both kdr and metabolic resistance. Advice to growers is as follows: • Ensure a level seed bed so that weevils are not able to shelter from insecticide applications in cooler weather • Do not use repeat applications of pyrethroid insecticides if they do not work initially • Use full rates of pyrethroids if control is still effective in order to prevent selection of resistant weevils • Spray during the warmer parts of the day as long as the crop is not flowering, to improve targeting of the adult insects • Use angled nozzles to improve targeting 06 t: 01780 782585 www.pgro.org e: [email protected] UK map of resistance 2015 Adult pea and bean weevil Pea and bean weevil foliar damage in beans Pea and bean weevil foliar damage in peas Pea and bean weevil foliar damage in peas Pea and bean weevil larvae feeding on root nodules Courtesy of Syngenta UK Ltd t: 01780 782585 www.pgro.org e: [email protected] 07 International Year of Pulses UK Fava Bean Falafels Win Top Prize at the Sold-out London Falafel Festival As the International Year of Pulses (IYP) gets into its stride, pulse-based foods caught the public’s imagination as four falafel masters competed for votes at the first ever Falafel Festival at London’s Borough Market. Falafels are one of the most popular new-wave foods for UK consumers, and this was reflected in the packed attendance at the Festival where falafels made with fava beans, chickpeas and lentils competed for the top prize, and over 700 potential falafel gourmets paid to attend the festival to sample offerings from the four chefs. Franek Smith Vice President of BEPA “ One of the objectives of the International Year of Pulses for UK pulse growers is to increase the awareness and consumption of all pulse products, and high profile public events like this show the versatility of pulses. The eventual winner was Mustafa Elrefaey of ‘Zööba’, who flew in from Cairo for the event, to prepare his charred-aubergine-stuffed falafel made with UK-produced fava beans, served over baba ghanouj and drizzled with beetroot and hibiscus tahini. Egypt is one of the major markets for human consumption beans grown by British farmers, hence Mustafa’s win using UK-produced beans underlined our well-earned reputation as quality bean growers - whether for export or for our home market. Mustafa Elrefaey is Executive Chef & Partner of Zooba Home grown “When we first heard about the 2016 London Falafel Festival from my Good Friend Mufaddal, we were very excited to just be invited and have the chance to introduce Egyptian Falafel (Taamia) outside of Egypt. At Zooba we’ve been working nonstop to perfect our Taamia recipe for the past four years, since we opened our first restaurant in 2012 in Cairo. We’ve changed our preparation process over five times just to make sure it has the right texture, crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside. To achieve this in every piece we decided that every order needs to be prepared fresh on the spot - no Taamia can be pre-prepared or pre-cooked! “ The invitation to compete in London came at a perfect time, when we were almost considering ourselves crazy for investing so much time in getting our recipe just right. It was very refreshing to feel that people care about Taamia as much as we do. We knew that the organizers were keen to include Egyptian Falafel as, while it is still one of the most popular street foods in Egypt, its origins date back to the Ancient Egyptians who used Fava Beans, as we still do today, to create a locally available fresh, nutritious meal. We believe that Falafel actually originated in Egypt and was then adopted across other cultures that make it with chickpeas or a 08 t: 01780 782585 www.pgro.org e: [email protected] chickpea and other bean combination. Our recipe stays true to the original recipe keeping it fresh with only fava beans as the base adding green herbs and spices but not overshadowing the original taste with too many ingredients. For the Festival we decided to offer one of our more unique and creative items, our Taamia with eggplant and spicy pepper filling. We also added a Tahini with hibiscus and beetroot topping which turned out to be a great hit and we’ll now bring back to Egypt. The preparation process in London for the Festival was tricky as we didn’t have our kitchen, our ingredients, our team, or our machinery. I spent two days in my brother’s house outside of London before the event preparing everything to make sure all the ingredients were ready to be cooked and served fresh on the day of the event. I think this is what made the win even more valuable for us as we had to be a bit creative and it took quite an effort to pull it together. To our surprise, the festival tickets were sold out, and once the tasting started, the queue did not end for three hours! The vibe was great, meeting the other participants and getting a taste of their Taamia was insightful and the reaction of the crowd was incredible - some of them were so passionate and kept coming back for more. The whole event really surpassed our expectations. This was a great experience and hopefully a new opportunity for Zooba!” Victoria Brown, an Artist based in Derbyshire, is running a project titled ‘Bean’, observing a bean crop from seed to harvest to create a series of paintings titled ‘The Bean Scrolls’ celebrating the land, plant growth and production of nutritious food for an ever-growing world population. “The Bean project started with a ‘Bean’ creative workshop with the team at Little Explorers Nursery which is a Forest School within Broomfield Hall, Derby College. The Nursery is set within beautiful surroundings, a working estate where the children spend most of their days outdoors in the rich learning environment including gardens, woods and fields. International Year of Pulses Events The series of events that will take place during the year will promote the message of what pulses are, what they look like, why they are healthy, good environmentally, how they are grown, what they produce - ending with what food products/ snacks they produce and giving the opportunity to experience what they taste like. Food and Farming Day1 July East of England Showground The Kids County Food and Farming Day aims to teach children where food comes from, and the importance of agriculture and the countryside, through interactive learning experiences. 6,000 children and their teachers are expected to attend. P G RO BEAN YIELD Challenge Check PGRO and BEPA web sites for full details and other dates! www.pgro.org www.bepa.org A generation ago, the Ten Tonne Club for wheat helped to change the aspirations of the best growers of wheat. It is now time to do the same for the bean crop, and the PGRO Bean Yield Challenge looks towards growing a 10 tonne field bean crop by 2020. The Challenge is open to any UK-based grower of any commercial UK-grown grain crop and will run annually until crop 2020 - or until the first 10t/ha crop Last chance is validated - whichever is the sooner. A prize trophy will be awarded annually for the highest verified yield for each crop year starting with 2015-2016. The absolute Yield Challenge winner will be the first grower to achieve a verified yield of 10t/ha or more. I will be artist in residence at the Nursery until July setting up a Bean Studio in a polytunnel within the Nursery grounds. The polytunnel is starting to be transformed, the children visit me in groups throughout the day and I set up different art activities for them to explore. We commenced with opening packets of bean seeds and closely observing the different shapes and sizes. The children then started drawing the seeds with charcoal and pastels. It was fascinating to see their concentration on drawing, the children are aged 2 to 4 years and they stayed with the task for far longer than I had anticipated. The children loved the digging and planting too. The following week I built on this experience by taking in watercolours and large pieces of watercolour paper. The children worked freely mixing and applying the paints to the beans they had drawn with sticks of charcoal. I am also working with a year five class at Dale Primary school at Normanton, within the City of Derby. To start the project we had a full day sketching bean seeds, planting beans, gilding beans and making bean patterns on the floor and in clay. Following weeks I shared my creative processes with the children using acrylic paints and gold to create a painting to celebrate the miracle of a seed. The paintings were stunning with careful detail, pattern and wonderful use of colour. The beans have loved the warmth of the school and have grown very quickly. The children have drawn sketches of the seeds at various stages of growth and have experimented using watercolour paints for the first time. I am keeping them up to date with progress on the bean field, they were very interested by my video of the beans being drilled on the farm.” for 2016 entries Closes 1 July for full details & rules go to www.pgro.org t: 01780 782585 www.pgro.org e: [email protected] 09 “ We grow beans as they fit well into our rotation giving a good gross margin and a great start to winter wheat “ Alan Webster Grower Story A Lancashire spring bean grower clocks up impressive yields on moss land Alan Webster and his wife Nancy farm over 200ha (a mixture of owned and rented land) on the Moss between Ormskirk and Southport in Lancashire - not a typical location for spring bean production. Yet he has achieved average yields from his spring beans over the last five years ranging from 6.18 to 8.05t/ha. And in some fields, the 2015 crop approached 9.85t/ha. Background The Websters started by renting just 18 acres for celery and spring onion production. Today they have a permanent team of five and take on 12 harvest casuals during the summer, cropping 2.5 million heads of celery. Spring onion production has been dropped, but 3000 tonnes of whole head cabbage are harvested all year round. The rotation is strictly 1:7 for the beans, Becky celery and cabbage. Winter wheat isWard always a first wheat, alternating on each Principal Technical Officer field every year. To make up the rest of the rotation potatoes, oats and grass are host cropped in collaboration with other local growers. Beans are a long-term fixture in the rotation and approximately 40ha are sown each year. The soil type varies mainly between deep black peats with underlying silts to dark sandy loams and a small area of boulder clay. Field sizes are typically 6-8 ha and bordered by watercourses. The land is low lying at approximately 2m above sea level with a flat aspect exposed to the in-blowing influences of the Irish Sea a few miles to the north and west. The climate is generally cooler than further south and inland, and the dark soil takes longer to warm up in spring. The soil type harbours a phenomenal weed bank, but soil structure, high water table and 15-year average of 888mm annual rainfall mean that soil water deficit is never a yield-limiting factor. 10 t: 01780 782585 www.pgro.org e: [email protected] Spring bean activities start with a look at the preceding winter wheat stubble, which is cleaned up with Roundup through the later autumn/winter period and is then left untouched until mid-march. Alan prefers to leave the land until it has really started to warm up. As well as ensuring a rapid emergence for the beans, it spreads the workload for the farm in the spring, allowing time-critical actions for other activities to take priority. Alan comments: “typically we are considered to be late sowers but I like the soil to be warm for the weeds to flush and for the beans to get up and away. Normally we drill around the 10th April, working the land from stubble to sown with pre-emergence of 4l/ha Nirvana (pendimethalin and imazamox ) + 0.25l/ha Centium (clomazone) applied within 3 days.” The land is ploughed with a tracked Class 850hp with 6 furrow plough, a Lemken trailing press and cultivator set. This produces a good tilth from a single pass, sufficient to take the suffolk coulters of the 6m Accord drill, placing the seed at a depth of 10cm. Alan insists that traffic on the land is kept to an absolute minimum to avoid any compaction: “but we always Cambridge Roll immediately after drilling to consolidate the seed bed. On the Moss, the seedbed needs to be firm to hold the beans up as they extend. At the same time we apply a maintenance application of 75kg Potash. Soil indices for phosphate and potash are 2+ on all our fields, so timing is not really important and we maintain a pH of 6-6.5 using granular lime ahead of the cabbage and celery crops.” For the previous five or more years Alan’s variety was Fuego, but he switched to Vertigo in 2015 as the PGRO tables show it should give a significant yield benefit: “it didn’t disappoint, but on just one year it is too soon to judge. I always use certified seed as it gives peace of mind in the event of anything going wrong, we know from our work with veg that seed can be tested as much as you like but it is field performance that counts and I like to have the safety net that a certificate provides.” Depending upon the soil type, around 230kgs/ha (approximately 42 seeds/sqm) are drilled, but on the lighter soils experience shows that the plants will be short in stature and set pods very low to the ground, presenting difficulties at harvest and increased pod losses. Plants on the silts may only reach 1m in height in comparison to those on the more peaty soils which not been necessary and bruchid beetle has not been a problem since 2005. Alan believes that the cooler climate in the northwest is a distinct advantage in this respect, but as a precaution he follows the guiding principles of the Bruchidcast system and always manages to achieve a human consumption grade premium for his produce. regularly exceed 2.5m. To combat this, the seed rate is increased a little (2-3 plants/sqm) to encourage interplant competition and an increase in the height of pod set. Using Alan’s establishment techniques, the plants are usually 30-80% emerged within 7-10 days and it is at this point that Alan takes a more unusual approach. Before the emerging cotyledons have begun to open out, he applies a dose of 1.5l/ha Retro (diquat). “It takes out all of the small weeds: we have done it for the last 10 years and, in my opinion it is the most important spray we apply.” The addition of Activator 90, a surfactant, ensures a better surface contact and control and avoids ‘spotting’ on the beans. The next critical phase comes in late May/early June when the crop is approximately 15-20cm tall and just before the rapid extension period. At this point, the crop is spring-tined grassland harrowed. After a week the crop has recovered and the process is repeated in the opposite direction. The mechanical weeding process ensures that any freshly emerging weeds are destroyed just as the crop is about to accelerate skywards and shut out the light. Alan believes it encourages the beans to branch: “it is not for the faint hearted as it looks a right mess and we probably lose up to 10% of the leaves. But the plants recover quickly and it ensures the best possible weed control. It never fails.” In 2015 a single application of an insecticide and fungicide was required for Downy Mildew, applied on 9th July. 280g/ha Aphox (pirimicarb) tank-mixed with 0.1l/ha Sparta (flusilazole and carbendazim) and 0.75kg/ha Signum (boscalid and pyraclostrobin) at early flowering. The policy adopted is to apply as much as is necessary - and if two or three fungicide sprays are required, there is no hesitation in order to preserve yield and, importantly, quality. Sowing late - and a belief in delaying pre-harvest desiccation until 70% of the pods are black and all of the leaves have fallen - means a late application of 4-5l/ha glyphosate and a late harvest, usually in the first 10 days of October. In the harvesting process, the straw chopper is periodically turned off to check for losses over the back, and forward speed is adjusted to ensure minimal front end losses. One of the best investments the farm has made has been a side knife, which has significantly reduced losses in lodged or leaning crops and speeds up throughput. In 2015, the final field was cut on 18th October at 18.5% moisture. The grain is dried to 15-15.5% moisture through a 16t Master mobile drier with pre-cleaner and dust extraction, before being moved to storage. Alan stresses: “drying is critical to preserve quality, we dry slowly with low heat to avoid splitting and can usually complete three 16t loads during a day.” The grain is continuously cycled during the drying process and is run cold for 30 minutes before turning out. Is the crop profitable? Well, from the 2015 crop, the gross margin calculations show a return of £697/ha - albeit with a price achieved of £138/t ex-farm for December movement. Alan sums up: “I always sell early as we need the space and I want the export market. Of course we would like more - the price was £92/t less than the best price of 2014, but prices of all crops are under serious pressure. “Our yield is due to timings of operations and our larger rainfall, this keeps the crop growing when most areas of the country would stop or shut down. In addition, due to late sowings, we tend to have less poor patches that could reduce our average yield. However, late sowing means late harvest - a worry as the weather mid to late September is not always best suited to combining. “We grow beans as they fit well into our rotation giving a good gross margin and a great start to winter wheat. Also they break up and condition the soil structure with the roots and the debris from the straw.” This is a shorter version of an article that appeared in Farmers Guardian on 13 May 2016 Whilst the Websters do nothing to specifically to encourage bees, there is a very high population locally and large numbers are attracted to the beans. Lessons learned from the past when growing peas have been applied to the bean crop, hence knowing that some of the fields are a bit prone to manganese deficiency, 3-4 kg/ha of manganese are routinely applied with the fungicide. To date, crop treatments for pea and bean weevil (Sitona) have t: 01780 782585 www.pgro.org e: [email protected] 11 PGRO Pulse Research Foot rot disease in peas – tests to assess risk levels in soil prior to pea planting Foot rot diseases of peas can have major impacts on yields. Infected plants are yellow in colour, may be stunted and plants often die before pods reach their full potential (Picture 1). These symptoms are caused by infection of plant roots by soil-borne pathogens. In the UK, the pathogens Fusarium spp. and Didymella pinodella have traditionally caused foot rots in peas but more recently another very destructive pathogen, Aphanomyces euteiches, has been adding to the foot rot complex. Dr Lea Wiesel Plant Pathologist “ It is of immense importance that we try to stop Aphanomyces euteiches from getting a hold in UK soils … Aphanomyces euteiches is a soil-borne oomycete that produces long-lasting resting spores (oospores) that can survive in soils for more than 10 years. Even low numbers of resting spores can have devastating impacts on yields and once a field is infected it cannot be used for pea cropping in at least a decade. There is no chemical control available for this disease and the only ways to try to control the disease impact is to stop distribution of Aphanomyces euteiches in the UK and to keep pathogen levels as low as possible in infected fields. Aphanomyces euteiches is a fairly new disease in UK soils and its distribution seems to be restrained to Northern parts of the UK so far. It has been confirmed in high levels in fields in the east of Scotland and has been detected in fields in Yorkshire last year. It is of immense importance that we try to stop Aphanomyces euteiches from getting a hold in UK soils. Some areas in France and the Great Lake regions of the USA are so heavily infested that pea production had to be abandoned in these areas. Brian Ó Loinsigh started his PhD project with the University of Nottingham and PGRO last year and is carrying out a soil survey across eastern parts of the UK this year. This will show the distribution of Aphanomyces euteiches in the UK. “ So much more ... Syngenta UK Ltd. Registered in England No. 849037. CPC4, Capital Park, Fulbourn, Cambridge CB21 5XE. Tel: 01223 883400 Fax: 01223 882195 Technical Enquiries Tel: 0800 169 6058 Email: [email protected] Website: www.syngenta.co.uk HALLMARK with ZEON TECHNOLOGY® is a Registered Trademark of a Syngenta Group Company. HALLMARK with ZEON TECHNOLOGY (MAPP 12629) contains lambda-cyhalothrin. Use plant protection products safely. Always read the label and product information before use. For further product information including warning phrases and symbols refer to www.syngenta.co.uk ©Syngenta AG May 2014. Although disease severity is dependent on soil structure and weather conditions, potentially the most important factor is the pathogen level in soils. PGRO has developed a lab based test to assess risk levels of Aphanomyces euteiches in soil. Infected roots are soft and honey coloured and cannot support plant health (Picture 2). Infection severity is scored on a scale of 0 to 5 (0 = healthy roots, 5 = dead roots) and any soil with an index of equal or greater 3 is very likely to lead to heavily diseased plants and subsequent reductions in yield. Pic 1: Foot rot disease in a pea field Pic 2: Aphanomyces euteiches Assessing Risk - Soil testing In order to get your soils tested for levels of Aphanomyces euteiches a soil sample of about 2 kg needs to be collected in a W shape across the field. Send the soil sample to PGRO with a note to say that you would like the soil to be tested for Aphanomyces euteiches. The price per soil sample is £149. Results will usually be reported within three weeks; it is, however, best to send in soil samples around 12-18 months prior to planting pea crops in order to allow sufficient time to replan should high levels of Aphanomyces euteiches be detected in your soils. PGRO also offers a test to determine levels of Fusarium solani and Didymella pinodella in soil at a price of £47 per soil sample. Levels are rated on a scale of 0.2 to 5 and for every point increase on the index scale there is a 0.85 t/ha yield penalty. A fourth pathogen, Fusarium oxysporum, has more recently been linked to foot rot diseases in peas too. PGRO is working on a project to develop molecular diagnostics for all four foot rot causing pathogens. The aim is to be able to determine levels of all pathogens in the soil sample simultaneously at a reduced price for growers. More importantly, the aim is to link pathogen levels to yield losses per hectare. This will provide a comprehensive risk assessment tool for pea growers and will help to increase efficiency of pea production in the UK. ... than meets the eye Hallmark Zeon® delivering unrivalled performance through patent protected Zeon Technology. Approved for use on a wide range of crops and insect pests. Collaborative pulse research Pete Iannetta of James Hutton Institute in Dundee. Sustainable protein production using faba beans: an overview on routes to commercialisation by beans4feed project partners On the 30th of June last year the £2.6 million InnovateUK/Industry funded project ‘Beans4feeds’ came to an end. The 54-month project focused on the “development of protein-rich and starch-rich fractions from faba beans for salmon and terrestrial animal production, respectively”. The project was justified by its potential for commercialisation, and by several underpinning economic and environmental drivers which included: the use of home grown legume produce; offsetting imports of soybean; reducing reliance on inorganic nitrogen fertiliser; and soil and biodiversity benefits. The approach pursued by Beans4feeds acknowledged that faba bean kernel meal has been used successfully in farmed salmon feeds for more than 20 years, and that more would be used if the faba bean protein could be isolated from the seed starch as a concentrate. Beans4feeds is co-funded by the Technology Strategy Board (TSB101096). The industrial partners are EWOS Ltd, BioMar Ltd, Limagrain UK Ltd and Harbro Ltd. The academic partners are the Universities of Stirling, Aberdeen, St. Andrews, Scotland’s Rural College and the James Hutton Institute. 14 t: 01780 782585 www.pgro.org e: [email protected] To give a commercial context 160,000 tonnes of salmon are produced annually in the UK with a fish-farm gate value of £600m. Salmon is Scotland’s second largest food export product (after whisky), with 200,000 tonnes of feed used every year at an excellent feed conversion rate of 1.25, or 0.8 kg of fish produced for every kg fed. Salmon production is set to increase dramatically, and sustainable protein sources for feeds are in high demand. Enriched protein fractions were achieved from kernel meal partitioned using ‘air fractionation’, where an air cyclone separates the smaller, lighter protein bodies from the larger, and heavier starch granules. Bean protein concentrate was fed to fish while bean starch concentrate was fed to pigs and poultry. WHOLE FABA BEANS (100%) Dehulling KERNELS 80% of whole bean HULLS 18% of whole bean Milling and Air Classification Protein Concentrate 20% of whole bean Starch Concentrate 60% of whole bean (11:1, protein:starch) (1:3, protein:starch) SALMON PIGS & POULTRY RUMINANTS The project results showed that air-fractionated bean protein concentrate in salmon feed with inclusion rates of up to 20% presented no health challenges, there were no obvious effects of bean anti-nutritionals, and fish feeding and growth were equal to or faster than fish fed conventionally - both when fed to fish juveniles (in freshwater) and to mature fish (in salt water). Fish fed with bean protein concentrate also showed normal yields, with good colour and no ‘gaping’ - separation of the muscle blocks and a measure of quality. Fillets from fish fed on bean protein concentrate also appeared 15-20% firmer, which is expected to help extend shelf life. Similar results were obtained for the starch concentrate fed to pigs and poultry, where soya could be completely replaced by bean starch in feeds for these animals. The project was not plain-sailing however, and key technical and commercial challenges remain. 1. The bean dehullers, millers and air-fractionation facilities are not co-localised, or co-owned. Centralising processing would improve commercial efficiency. 2. A commercial-scale air (or wet) protein-starch fractionation plant for beans remains to be established in the UK. 3. A major commercial hurdle is the value which must be realised by the bean starch – ca. £300/tonne – to ensure that production of the bean products is economically viable. 4. The starch concentrate is the bulk of the by-product, 80% of the material or 60% of the whole bean. This means that high volume users are required. 5. A ‘wet method’ to isolate protein from bean kernel meal was also investigated but, while the much higher protein content obtained by this method was desirable, the protein yield was low making the economics very challenging. Also, while this method produced pure starch, the cost of production is more than double that of air fractionated starch. Possible commercial solutions 1. Centralisation of processing facilities (dehullers, millers and fractionators) at centres of faba bean production: discussions on the partnership possibilities will continue discretely as the shift to healthier demitarian diets and demand for farmed fish is set for a large increase globally. 2. Improve levels of protein individual beans to 35% or more: the James Hutton Institute and Limagrain are working together using suitable germplasm developed in the course of the project. These include types with protein levels of almost 40% protein. 3. Develop higher value products from the bean starch concentrate: the use of the air fractionated starch for making healthy breads, ales and for distilling has been trialled successfully in collaboration with Barney’s Beer (Edinburgh), Prof. Graeme Walker (Abertay University, Dundee), and Arbikie Distillery (Manager, Kirsty Black). 4. Increasing the commercial value of the faba bean hulls: would increase the economic viability of the air-fractionation based approach. Since, at 20% of the whole bean, isolated hulls are a significant determinant of the total value which is achieved by all three fractionated bean components. These commercially-sensitive options are being explored by academic partners across the UK 5. Examine alternative approaches to protein isolation by processing whole beans: removing the starch from milled whole beans by fermentation and production of high value beer and neutral spirits is proving successful, with high protein by-products available for exploitation and feeds. Greg Macvean Photography Nevertheless, beans4feeds has achieved very strong technical and commercial success especially in confirming the effectiveness of bean protein - and starch - concentrates as fish and animal feeds. Also, the identification of promising breeding lines, and the establishment of genomic capacities which will enable marker assisted breeding projects that will improve the traits required by food and feed processors in addition to the usual agronomic targets of yield and disease resistance. Agronomic insight and improvement were also made by beans4feeds, including the potential of ‘elite rhizobial inoculum’. So, while beans remain a very profitable crop increasing the demand via new markets using bean concentrates will only add to their profitability. For more information readers should visit www.beans4feeds/projectreports or contact: [email protected] t: 01780 782585 www.pgro.org e: [email protected] 15 The Pulse Magazine is the official journal of the PGRO and is produced three times a year in Summer, Winter and Spring. It is widely circulated around the farming community and agricultural trade and reports on the PGRO’s R&D work on pulse varieties, pests, diseases and crop protection - as well as general agronomy issues and on pulse markets in the UK and around the world. Growers of peas and beans qualify for membership of the PGRO by virtue of the small voluntary levy on produce sold through the merchant trade. Grower membership of the PGRO has the following benefits: • Full access to the PGRO website (www.pgro.org) and to all the updates, technical information and associated services provided there. • Access to the new PGRO online discussion forum where topical updates are aired and experiences of fellow pulse growers shared. • The PGRO is accessible for two-way communication via social media on twitter@pgroresearch. • Short and succinct PGRO Crop Updates emailed throughout the growing season highlight topical issues as and when appropriate. • Pulse Market Updates are published and circulated on a monthly basis to registered members. • Advice from the PGRO team is only a phone call away. Keeping in touch with the PGRO is easy and, as a levy paying grower member - or if you are a paid up associate member - all you have to do is phone us or register online and provide your brief contact details to obtain your login. 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