“I started out as an adviser like most APG directors,” said chair Robert Semeniuk. “Becoming an adviser is a great way to get involved with APG.”

Adviser spots are open in all five zones and any producer who has sold pulses and paid service charges in the last two years is eligible. There are about 6,500-plus growers in the province.

The deadline for submitting a nomination is Nov. 1 and each candidate must be endorsed by another pulse producer from their zone.

The nomination form is available at albertapulse.com.

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The fourth-generation Lacombe-area producer, who retired from farming in 2016, was the inaugural vice-president of Alberta Pulse Growers Commission in 1989, becoming the group’s president a year later. He began growing peas in 1984 (to feed his brother’s hogs) and became well known as an early adopter of new practices and technologies as well as for sharing his experiences with other pulse growers.

Today there are more than 6,500 growers of field peas, lentils, dry beans, chickpeas, fababeans and soybeans in Alberta. Peas are by far the most popular (with acreage ranging from 1.5 million to 1.9 million acres) with lentils a solid second (generally between 400,000 to 500,000 acres).

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Kirsty Ross (Piquette) was a provincial district agriculturist in the mid-1980s when she started to look for another option to add to the area’s crops and generate more cash flow for farmers.

“Kirsty became a visionary for the pulse industry in northeast Alberta,” said incoming Alberta Pulse chair Don Shepert, who farms at St. Brides. “She introduced a new crop that had no history in the area. She persevered through the use of grower groups to advance the crop to a place of prominence in rotations in our area.”

Ross organized field trials after becoming intrigued by the nitrogen cycle and nutrients that pulses provide to the soil.

But it was a make-do effort, she said, in accepting the award at Alberta Pulse’s recent AGM.

“I didn’t have access to plot equipment in those days, so it was really whatever drill and harvest equipment that someone was kind enough to let me use,” she said. “Those were the days — if any of you remember — of trapper peas with the nine-foot vines that wrapped around everything. People were looking at me like I was nuts: ‘What, we’re not growing this thing up here.’ We also used cement mixers for inoculating and there were maybe one or two herbicides that were licensed for field peas.”

At the time, the St. Paul area was home to a high concentration of hogs, and that was the original target market, she noted. Growing the field pea industry was a collaborative effort of producers, grower groups, agricultural service boards, plant breeders, and many others, she said.

“By proving the crop could be grown and marketed successfully in the area, growers became interested. It was a team effort, but I guess I was the catalyst. I was able to bring everyone together. I always wondered what else we could grow up there and peas seemed to be a great fit.”

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New directors are Semeniuk in Zone 5 and Kelisha Archer of Drumheller in Zone 2, who were each elected for a three-year term.

Will Muller of Bow Island was acclaimed as director-at-large (bean), and Peter Konstapel of Spirit River was acclaimed as director-at-large (non-bean), each for a one-year term.

Outgoing directors are past chair D’Arcy Hilgartner (Zone 5), Doug Sell (Zone 2), John Kowalchuk (director- at-large, non-bean), and Tim van der Hoek (director-at-large, bean).

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The one per cent fee has been in place since 2003, but the increasing number of both pulse acres and growers means more money is being collected. The commission’s board believes a lower levy would not impact its ability to fund research activities, Pulse Canada, and other activities, said chair D’Arcy Hilgartner.

Membership numbers have jumped by 900 in the past year, and now stand at about 6,000. Anyone who sold pulses in Alberta in the past two years is counted as a member.

The AGM will be held on Jan. 31 at FarmTech.

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“When producers are looking for information, they need it fast and they need to be able to depend on it to be accurate,” said chair D’Arcy Hilgartner. “This website makes use of technological advances to put up-to-date, reliable pulse information at the fingertips of visitors when they need it.”

The revamped website is mobile friendly and allows growers to sign up for SMS news updates in addition to emails.

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While working at Alberta Agriculture in the 1980s, Roth ran field-scale demonstrations for early soybean, lupin, fababean, chickpea, bean, pea and lentil crops. He helped establish the Alberta Pulse Growers Association and its transition to the Alberta Pulse Growers Commission in 1989. In 1990, Roth started working in special crops with Alberta Pool and then Agricore. During the last nine years, he’s been the director of special crops for Viterra, overseeing the North American procurement, processing and marketing of pulses for the company.

“Blair Roth not only helped create markets for pulses but also assisted the farmers who created this body, the Alberta Pulse Growers, that is very successful today and has grown tremendously throughout his career,” said Tim VanderHoek, the director-at-large for beans with Alberta Pulse Growers.

“To me, these type of awards are a team game,” Roth said after receiving the award at FarmTech. “I hope I have played some small part, and I don’t expect the momentum of this industry to slow as the next generation takes on the challenges of the future.”

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An industry innovator is a person who has worked to help nurture and shape the pulse industry and contributed to the success of the industry as it is today. Innovators have contributed to the industry in one or more of eight areas: production, marketing, research, extension, processing, management, promotion, and innovation.

More information and the nomination form can be found at pulse.ab.ca.

The deadline for nominations is Dec. 8 and the winner will be announced at the Alberta Pulse Growers AGM in Edmonton on Feb. 1, 2017.

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“This is a good tool for the marketplace and growers who are looking at a feed option for their field peas,” said Allison Ammeter, chair of the Alberta Pulse Growers.

The benchmark prices are intended for use as a pricing reference for buyers and sellers of feed peas by providing an indication of the ‘feeding value’ of peas.

“The prices represent the point at which peas start to become an economically feasible feed ingredient for swine,” said Tim Wiens, chair of the Saskatchewan Pulse Growers, adding most western Canadian feed peas are fed to hogs.

The benchmark provides a consistent, unbiased estimate of the feeding value of dry peas in central Alberta (Red Deer and area), central Saskatchewan (Saskatoon and area), and southern Manitoba (Winnipeg and area). It’s based on the value of competing feed ingredients in swine rations. Feed peas trade at various differentials to the benchmark based on local supply and demand, quality differences, and other contract terms.

Biweekly, tradable prices of the major feed ingredients are collected for the three regions. These prices are then entered into a least-cost feed formulation that is typical for grower-finisher swine in Western Canada. A feeding value is then derived for feed peas based on their nutritional characteristics and the prices of the other competing feed ingredients.

The benchmark will be posted every two weeks at pulse.ab.ca and in Alberta Pulse Growers’ biweekly e-newsletter Pulse Check.

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