Prolific pea breeder Dr. Dengjin Bing honoured with 10th Annual Alberta Pulse Industry Innovator Award

Apr 03, 2024

The Alberta Pulse Growers (APG) selected Dr. Dengjin (DJ) Bing, who continues to produce strong field pea varieties with traits desired by farmers, as the winner of the tenth annual Alberta Pulse Industry Innovator Award.

“Each year, APG recognizes a person or organization whose progressive thinking and tireless efforts helped build Alberta’s pulse industry into the flourishing sector that it is today,” said APG Chair Shane Strydhorst. “Farmers recognize Dr. Bing’s research contributions that have demonstrated success and advanced the growth of pulses in their businesses. The strength, consistency and performance of the field pea varieties released from Dr. Bing’s program have regularly provided, and continue to provide, excellent returns to the farm gate.”

Alberta pulse farmers and distinguished guests were on hand to celebrate Bing and his achievements at an award luncheon during recent APG Joint Director-Advisor meetings in Lethbridge.

Strydhorst noted that the strength, consistency and performance of the field pea varieties released from Bing’s program, have made them a popular choice on Alberta farms.

“Dr. Bing’s traditional scientific breeding techniques and strong attention to traits addressing increased protein levels, standability and disease tolerance have elevated adoption of his varieties,” he said. “I think that most, if not all, growers in this room have benefitted from Dr. Bing’s varieties over the years on their farms. I know from my experience, we’ve grown Canstar peas back in the day, Thunderbird peas, and more recently AAC Lacombe peas with good results.”

Bing’s colleagues celebrated his accomplishments in a video that was shown during the ceremony and is available on the APG Youtube channel.

“This is a really a great honour,” said Bing, who is based at the Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) Lacombe Research and Development Centre. “I want to thank the Alberta Pulse Growers. It gives me profound pleasure and responsibility because you have supported the program by investing in the program. I always feel I am responsible for producing the products and returning your investment. I appreciate this working relationship and your unwavering support for the program. This award is also recognition for my team and all the people who have worked together and been involved.”

The Alberta Pulse Growers Commission represents 5,400 growers of field pea, dry bean, lentil, chickpea, faba bean and soybean in Alberta. Our vision is to have pulses on every farm, on every plate.

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Video: Why Your Food Future Could be Trapped in a Seed Morgue

In a world of PowerPoint overload, Rex Bernardo stands out. No bullet points. No charts. No jargon. Just stories and photographs. At this year’s National Association for Plant Breeding conference on the Big Island of Hawaii, he stood before a room of peers — all experts in the science of seeds — and did something radical: he showed them images. He told them stories. And he asked them to remember not what they saw, but how they felt.

Bernardo, recipient of the 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award, has spent his career searching for the genetic treasures tucked inside what plant breeders call exotic germplasm — ancient, often wild genetic lines that hold secrets to resilience, taste, and traits we've forgotten to value.

But Bernardo didn’t always think this way.

“I worked in private industry for nearly a decade,” he recalls. “I remember one breeder saying, ‘We’re making new hybrids, but they’re basically the same genetics.’ That stuck with me. Where is the new diversity going to come from?”

For Bernardo, part of the answer lies in the world’s gene banks — vast vaults of seed samples collected from every corner of the globe. Yet, he says, many of these vaults have quietly become “seed morgues.” “Something goes in, but it never comes out,” he explains. “We need to start treating these collections like living investments, not museums of dead potential.”

That potential — and the barriers to unlocking it — are deeply personal for Bernardo. He’s wrestled with international policies that prevent access to valuable lines (like North Korean corn) and with the slow, painstaking science of transferring useful traits from wild relatives into elite lines that farmers can actually grow. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. But he’s convinced that success starts not in the lab, but in the way we communicate.

“The fact sheet model isn’t cutting it anymore,” he says. “We hand out a paper about a new variety and think that’s enough. But stories? Plants you can see and touch? That’s what stays with people.”

Bernardo practices what he preaches. At the University of Minnesota, he helped launch a student-led breeding program that’s working to adapt leafy African vegetables for the Twin Cities’ African diaspora. The goal? Culturally relevant crops that mature in Minnesota’s shorter growing season — and can be regrown year after year.

“That’s real impact,” he says. “Helping people grow food that’s meaningful to them, not just what's commercially viable.”

He’s also brewed plant breeding into something more relatable — literally. Coffee and beer have become unexpected tools in his mission to make science accessible. His undergraduate course on coffee, for instance, connects the dots between genetics, geography, and culture. “Everyone drinks coffee,” he says. “It’s a conversation starter. It’s a gateway into plant science.”