EDMONTON – A United Nations’ committee on climate change says pulses
are particularly bad crops for the environment, but an Agriculture
Canada scientist refutes that assumption.
Reynald Lemke agrees with climate experts that nitrous oxide is the
nastiest agricultural greenhouse gas, with 310 times the warming
potential of carbon dioxide.
But he was skeptical about the UN’s premise that pulses produce more of
that gas than other crops due to their nitrogen fixing ability. Now he
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has evidence that is not the case.
Two years of research trials in Three Hills, Alta., and one year in
Swift Current, Sask., have shown pulses have the opposite effect, Lemke
told 150 fellow scientists attending the fourth annual Canadian Pulse
Research Workshop in Edmonton.
“Based on the information we have at hand, including a pulse into a
cereal-based system looks like it has a positive benefit. It actually
reduces nitrous oxide emissions relative to a continuously cropped
fertilized wheat.”
The estimated annual nitrous oxide loss for wheat crops in Three Hills
ranged from 600-800 grams per acre. It wasn’t much better during the
wheat phase of a canola-barley-pea-wheat rotation.
But during the pea phase of that rotation, the gas emission dropped to
between 180 and 320 g, or about one-third as much as the continuously
cropped wheat.
Data from the Swift Current site was inconclusive because 2001-02 was
such a dry year there that nitrous oxide emissions were minuscule for
all crops grown there.
Lemke said the research results bode well for the pulse industry,
especially with the federal government ratifying the Kyoto Protocol, an
international agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It may even
become a marketing tool to convince farmers to grow more pulses.
“If I’m diversifying and including pulses in the rotation, all the
indications are that’s a good thing for the environment,” he said.
Pulse Canada chair Germain Dauk wants more research done to confirm
Lemke’s findings.
“If they continue to bear out the same results from research, I think
we can use that to promote the pulse industry.”
He also thinks the results can be used to leverage more research
dollars out of Ottawa, a task that hasn’t been going as well as the
industry had hoped.
“The federal government doesn’t quite understand or don’t know how we
can fit into their programs,” said Dauk, who attended the Edmonton
workshop.
A senior Agriculture Canada official recently said Ottawa plans to
spend hundreds of millions more dollars on agriculture research
initiatives over the next five years. Most of that money will be spent
on projects related to food safety and the environment, two pillars of
the federal government’s new agricultural policy framework.
“We can take (the research results) to them and say, ‘here’s an example
of how we can fit into the environment pillar,’ ” said Dauk.
Lemke said his research trials also showed that nitrous oxide emissions
were lower on average under zero tillage systems than conventional
tilling.
In 2000-01 the average annual gas emission was 443 g per acre for
conventional and 284 g for zero till crops. In 2001-02, those numbers
were 547 and 337 g respectively.
