Features
Building a Better Bean
Research partnership aims to make bean breeding more efficient, help develop new varieties for Ontario growers to sell abroad
BY ANDREW VOWLES
Breeding better beans and helping Ontario farmers grow their export business is the purpose of a research partnership connecting Prof. Peter Pauls, Plant Agriculture, with a federal scientist now located on campus.
Along with Ali Navabi, a research scientist with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC), Pauls hopes to make bean breeding more efficient and help develop new varieties for Ontario growers to sell abroad.
Together, the researchers are merging two bean-breeding programs — one formerly run by Pauls at U of G and one previously located at AAFC’s Harrow Research Station, which is now directed by Navabi at Guelph.
“Bringing the programs together will help streamline bean breeding in Ontario,” says Pauls.
Breeding and annual trials of new bean varieties are now based at Guelph. Growers are looking for higher-yielding varieties that are resistant to disease, says Pauls.
His lab is studying health benefits of white and coloured beans. Beans can provide a “full” feeling, limiting overeating, he says. As with other pulses — peas, lentils and chickpeas — beans contain proteins and fibre. Dark beans, including cranberry or romano beans, kidney beans and black beans, also contain antioxidants, which may protect cells from damage.
Pauls has also studied folate content. “We’re just starting to get to know all the health benefits of beans in our diet.”
About 85 per cent of Ontario beans are exported, mostly to Europe. The province’s bean-growing market is worth about $100 million a year. Farmers grow up to 150,000 acres of beans annually, mostly in southwestern Ontario.
That’s not a huge crop, says Pauls, but it’s a reliable cash crop.
Guelph has released several white bean varieties, including OAC Laser and OAC Rex, which was the first cultivar resistant to bacterial blight in the world. Lightning, another white bean, and the OAC Redstar kidney bean should be commercially available in a year or two.
Navabi came to Canada from Iran on a scholarship from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre.
“I love plant breeding,” he says. “It’s an interesting job trying to find something better than what’s available.”
The joint program is being supported for five years by the Ontario Coloured Bean Growers’ Association, the Ontario White Bean Producers, AAFC, U of G and the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs.