Alberta bean growers will be keenly following field trials of a newly registered pinto variety this summer.
AC Agrinto, a tall, early-maturing bean that yields about the same as the highest yielding existing varieties, is the first pinto line out of Agriculture Canada’s bean breeding program to receive registration.
It offers growers better standability and disease resistance than Othello, the dominant pinto grown in Alberta.
“It brings together a lot of the important characteristics that we’ve been striving for,” said Blair Roth, manager of Agricore United’s bean business unit, the company that will be commercializing AC Agrinto.
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By shortening the growing season, breeders were able to develop a crop that significantly reduces the risk of frost damage.
Preliminary research shows it will also decrease fungicide costs by providing built-in resistance to bacterial wilt and to the most common race of anthracnose. It has also demonstrated low levels of white mould infection in research trials.
“This new bean variety, with its better tolerance to disease, will help growers reduce the cost of production and enhance their competitiveness in the world marketplace,” said Roth.
The next step is to see if the results hold up in commercial fields. Roth said the company only has a small amount of breeder seed to propagate, but it hopes to have some in single row demonstration plots in southern Alberta this summer so farmers can get a close look at the new crop.
Janette McDonald, executive director of Alberta Pulse Growers, said more than half of Alberta’s 55,000 acres of beans are seeded to pintos.
Climatic conditions in that province allow growers to produce more brightly coloured pintos that normally command a premium over the generic pintos that are produced in the rest of the prairie region.
Breeders have been working for some time to produce a pinto that would rival Othello, an American bean that came out of a breeding program in Idaho.
“That has been a tough nut to crack,” she said. “It has taken a while to find the genetics that work to surpass it in yield, standability and disease resistance.”
Koos Wysbeek, research chair with Alberta Pulse Growers, is pleased to see a pinto variety join the black, great northern and red bean varieties released by Agriculture Canada that are widely grown in southern Alberta.
He said AC Agrinto, which was eight years in the making, will give bean growers the opportunity to expand a market class that was developed for irrigated wide row production in Alberta and Saskatchewan.
“Dry beans are an important crop in Western Canada. It’s one crop that has been profitable for farmers in the last 10 years. AC Agrinto will help us maintain our position in the global marketplace,” said Wysbeek.
Roth said certified seed of AC Agrinto should be commercially available within three years.
