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6 | Pulse Research Report GROW GENETICS Alberta bean acreage ranges between 52,000-55,000 in any given year. Beans are grown under irrigation in southern Alberta. The primary market classes of dry beans grown are pinto, Great Northern, and black. Irrigation remains a strong contributor to pulse production in Alberta. PROJECT TITLE Selection for disease resistance in early maturing dry bean lines for Alberta PROJECT LEAD Parthiba Balasubramanian, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada New funding helps ensure that Alberta bean growers will continue to see a steady stream of early-maturing, high-yielding and disease-resistant new varieties with superior seed quality. Taking Dry Beans Above and Beyond For a crop with a relatively small acreage, grown in a specific geographic range, dry bean in Alberta punches far above its weight in terms of dollars and cents. The province's 50,000 irrigated acres of dry beans produce a crop worth $35 million annually. Without yield losses caused by the key diseases white mould and bacterial blight, that figure could be considerably higher. That's why Parthiba Balasubramanian's work over the past 15 years with dry beans has been so important. He's developed many varieties specifically suited to Alberta's growing conditions that mature earlier, have improved disease resistance and yield higher. "Breeding is a long-term thing," said Balasubramanian, Dry Bean Breeder with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) in Lethbridge. "Bringing traits like disease resistance into early-maturing lines is step one. Once we have it in lines that are adapted to southern Alberta, we then cross them with the cultivars that have proven themselves. Those crosses generally result in the most productive cultivars." Balasubramanian's long-standing breeding efforts could also be deemed productive. In 2017, 99% of acres grown in Alberta used varieties that came out of the Lethbridge program. RESEARCH ASSURED FOR FIVE MORE YEARS Dry bean growers in Alberta received good news this summer with the announcement of new funding from the Canadian Pulse Science Research Cluster which will allow Balasubramanian to continue his work until 2023. A new target of Balasubramanian's research is to look beyond plant standability to avoid white mould disease. He's looking to add partial physiological resistance within the plant. Balasubramanian points to one recently registered variety to illustrate the kind of improvement this approach can bring about. Othello, a bean variety that was grown in 2007, can result in white mould in up to 75% of the plants, due to a weak stem and poor standability. Balasubramanian's cultivar, the 2016-registered AAC Explorer, drastically reduces white mould incidences to around 25%, due to its lodging resistance. That's targeted breeding in action. "We've seen this work time and again in this program," Balasubramanian said. "For example, common bacterial blight resistance was only available in late-maturing lines developed for Ontario. Throughout the years, we crossed the Ontario lines with those better for Alberta, and now we have many lines in our program with bacterial blight resistance." As Alberta's dry bean growers look for higher-yielding, more disease- resistant and earlier-maturing varieties in the future, new funding will allow Balasubramanian and his team to explore different ways to meet those needs. "Growers take major risks with frost, and if cultivars are not high-yielding, bean production may not be profitable for them," Balasubramanian said. "This dry bean breeding program has been able to develop cultivars that combine early maturity with high yield. Add in unique traits, and you make bean production even more profitable."

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