The pulse crop industry in Saskatchewan has grown substantially in the past few decades. This year, a record 5.3 million lentil acres were planted in the province. The Regina Leader-Post is taking an in-depth look into this industry, with a four-part series entitled The Power of Pulses.
Today: The origins of pulse crops in Saskatchewan.
Thursday: Soil and health benefits of pulses.
Friday: Pulse processing in the province.
Saturday: Taking the current pulse of pulses.
Wheat, summer fallow, wheat, summer fallow and so on — was the so-called ‘crop rotation’ of the 1970s in Saskatchewan. The elevators at that time were backlogged with wheat and no one was buying. Something needed to change.
The Crop Development Centre at the University of Saskatchewan was founded in order to change things. Its mandate was to research speciality crops and add diversity to the Saskatchewan crop landscape.
“The whole idea was to modernize the agricultural system anyway you can, and part of that has to be through crop development,” said Albert Vandenberg, researcher at the Crop Development Centre in Saskatoon.
Researchers were hired to work on flax and pulses. Alfred Slinkard, a crop researcher from the University of Idaho, came to work on pulse crops.
On Feb. 1, 1972 Slinkard arrived in Saskatoon to work at the bare bones centre — there was only him and two other researchers working on other crop varieties in the department, along with a secretary.
Slinkard was supposed to be a dry peas researcher. He ordered the United States Department of Agriculture collection of peas right after he arrived in Saskatoon.
In the Palouse area of Washington state where Slinkard was from, people grew both lentils and peas.
“I figured if peas grow here, lentils should grow here or at least in some areas,” he said.
After he received the USDA collection of lentils, he started testing varieties. He then received a three-year grant from Agriculture Canada to run field tests in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.
Slinkard had farmers do strip trials in which one side would be planted with their own farming practices and the other with his recommended practices.
Bruce Cheston, a farmer from the Drinkwater area near Moose Jaw, decided to grow two whole fields of lentils. He planted one field on summer fallow and another on Slinkard’s recommended wheat stubble.
“(The fields) were side-by-side and they yielded 1,800 pounds to the acre, both of them,” Slinkard said.
That year a drought swept through the Palouse area in Washington — which was the major pulse growing area in North America. Grain buyers had already sold the expected crop and now were scrambling to find lentils to fill the order. They heard about Cheston’s crop up north and rushed to buy it.
“Here’s Bruce Cheston with 1,800 pounds to the acre. That’s almost $600 an acre. The neighbour across the road was getting about $100 an acre on wheat and after that everybody wanted to grow lentils,” Slinkard said.
Source : Leaderpost