Most people think of peas as a vegetable they eat.
Paul Fields thinks of peas as a potential means of controlling insects in stored grain.
Fields, a research scientist at Agriculture Canada’s Cereal Research Centre in Winnipeg, did tests last year to learn how well pea flour repels insects in stored grain.
The results were encouraging, he said, but further testing is needed.
The research has shown that pea protein is toxic to stored-grain insects.
The rice weevil and rusty grain beetle are among the insects most sensitive to it, Fields said.
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The rusty grain beetle is one of the worst menaces to stored grain in Western Canada.
Fields and the Cereal Research Centre now are looking for a business partner to support the research and development of a product that uses pea protein as an insecticide repellent.
He expects it will take three to five years for a commercial product to reach the market. That takes into account the time needed to complete more testing, to do the number crunching on production costs, and to get approval to market the product as an insecticide repellent for stored grain.
One of the challenges will be developing a commercial product affordable to farmers.
“Farmers aren’t going to pay more than they have to to control insects in their grain,” Fields said.
The interest in pea flour as an insect repellent was triggered six years ago by a discovery made at the Parrheim Foods plant in Saskatoon.
It was noticed that there were no insects in the pea meal being processed at the plant.
