BARRHEAD, Alta. – Farmers and crop breeders believe they have a new crop that will replace expensive nitrogen in the field and imported soybean meal in hog rations.
Zero tannin faba beans grow well in Alberta. They will out-yield field peas, fix nitrogen in the soil, be a good high protein substitute for soybean meal and can reduce heart disease.
“It just fits,” said Darrel Anderson of Red Deer, who travelled more than three hours to attend a field day devoted to zero tannin faba beans and lupins.
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“I have a quarter of land that is suited to faba beans. As a protein source, we should be using it rather than soybean meal,” said Anderson.
That’s the kind of buzz researchers had hoped to generate in farmers when they developed the zero-tannin faba bean. Tannins are the compounds that give the seed its bitter taste and create digestibility problems in hog and poultry rations.
With feed as the biggest input cost in raising hogs, there are hopes the zero-tannin faba bean, with 28 to 30 percent protein, will soon replace soybean meal as a local protein supplement.
“The first market is growing faba beans for hog barns,” said Mark Olson, Alberta Agriculture’s provincial pulse industry development specialist.
If farmers can grow faba beans for their hog producing neighbours, it could provide one more seeding choice in the spring. But it’s important to have a contract lined up before the seed goes in the ground, said Olson. He knows of one farmer who sat on 25,000 bushels of the beans for two years.
As with any new crop, the problem is convincing feed mills to switch from soybeans to faba beans when creating livestock rations.
“The challenge is with feed mills unfamiliar with the feed ingredients. Changing to another protein source is a challenge. They’re not interested in a B-train of faba beans. They want three months supply,” said Olson.
Research has shown grower-finisher pigs performed well when fed 30 percent faba beans instead of soybeans. The beans have also performed well when used as supplemental protein in late nursery diets without any negative effects on weaned pig performance.
This is the fourth year Cliff Cyre has grown faba beans. The zero tannin variety hold so much promise he has bought the rights for Snowbird faba beans for Canada and is in the process of multiplying seed for production.
“We’ve always grown pulses of some kind and this is one more pulse crop,” said Cyre, of Barrhead, who has 140 acres of Snowbird beans this year.
While faba beans are a fairly long season crop,they do well in northern Alberta’s cooler, wetter parkland and Peace regions.
“It’s got to have moisture,” said Cyre. He estimates this year’s hot summer reduced his yield to about 50 bushels per acre, down from last year’s 70 to 100 bu. per acre.
“The heat did it some damage.”
Cyre also likes the faba bean’s ability to fix nitrogen, which eliminates the nitrogen bill for the crop and reduces nitrogen requirements for the following year.
“Nitrogen fixation, that’s a plus.”
Albert Wagner of Stony Plain, Alta., also believes the zero tannin faba beans hold promise, especially for reducing input costs and as a new livestock feed.
“We grew some faba beans this year in order to do some swath grazing instead of corn,” said Wagner.
Because of a late flush of canola in the crop, it will likely be combined, but he hasn’t given up on its potential.
“I think faba beans has immediate potential. It can be sold from farm to farm and you don’t need infrastructure,” said Wagner.
Ken Lopetinsky, Alberta Agriculture’s pulse research agronomist, said under dry conditions peas will equal or do better than faba beans. In wet years, faba beans will equal or out-yield field peas.
