WINNIPEG – The pulse market has been largely quiet for the last couple of months, according to Adam Krieser of CanPulse Foods in Saskatoon, Sask. Although rail shipments had been curtailed due to cold weather, a number of issues and a tragic accident.

On Feb. 4 three Canadian Pacific crew members were killed when their train derailed on CP’s mainline near Field, British Columbia.

Rail service had been very good for most of the crop year, Krieser said, but the last three weeks has seen some of the big players in the grain industry having trouble getting service. However, the railways are catching up, he noted.

Otherwise pulses have been largely quiet.

“It’s been a market where you saw big amounts of coverage were bought by the industry here in Canada, right around Christmas time and at the start of January,” he said.

Those large amounts of pulse were quickly acquired internally or through brokers and completed without stirring up the market for a long time, according to Krieser.

“I think it’s going to be quiet for a while,” he commented, as the demand is not there and Canada’s stocks are in good shape.

“Everyone is nervous to hang a price out there and excite the market,” Krieser said.

As for India, their harvest likely will not be a record crop either way – not in terms of output or shortfall, especially lentils, he said.

About the only thing that could generate excitement in pulses in Canada is a few months away – seeding time. Krieser expects prices to move once Canadian farmers have planted their pulses for 2019.