Associated Press Writer

By BLAKE NICHOLBy BLAKE NICHOLSON

Dry pea production has shifted from the Pacific Northwest to the Upper Midwest, and industry officials want research efforts to move in the same direction.

A bill in the North Dakota Legislature would establish the nation's second public pulse crop breeding program, at North Dakota State University in Fargo. The only existing program to develop new varieties of dry peas, lentils and chickpeas is a federal Agricultural Research Service effort based at Washington State University in Pullman, Wash.

"In the last 10 years, North Dakota has become the main producing region," particularly for dry peas, said Eric Bartsch, executive director of the Northern Pulse Growers Association, which represents farmers in North Dakota and Montana. "It's fitting since production is concentrated in this region, to have a breeding program here."

Dry pea production in Washington last year was about half what it was in the late 1990s. In North Dakota, dry pea production has increased nearly tenfold, and the state now produces almost three-fourths of the nation's crop.

Kevin McPhee, a researcher with the pulse breeding program in Washington, said the shift in production has come about largely because ranchers are including peas in their cattle feed.

"In the Midwest, (producers) are in closer proximity to feed markets for livestock, and they still are able to service many of the food markets at the same time," he said.

Velva rancher Jerry Effertz said he started feeding peas to his cows in the past year, in part because they are a high-protein feed that can be mixed with low-protein feed such as corn.

He has another reason, as well. Research, he said, indicates "an increase in both the tenderness and taste of the beef product."

Effertz is chairman of the State Board of Agricultural Research and Education, which sets agricultural research priorities in North Dakota. Funding a pulse breeder at NDSU was among the top priorities submitted to lawmakers this year, he said.

"They're an increasingly popular crop for two reasons," Effertz said. "The market is growing for them; also the opportunity to fix nitrogen in high-cost nitrogen times."

Pulse crops put nitrogen back in the soil, reducing or eliminating the need for farmers to use chemical fertilizers.

Gov. John Hoeven, in his budget recommendation for the next two years, included a total of $470,000 for the pulse breeding program. The funding is included in legislation being considered in the state House.

It would provide $200,000 in salary for a breeder at NDSU's main research station in Fargo and $150,000 in salary for an assistant breeder who would work at NDSU's research center south of Minot. Another $120,000 would provide operating money for the program.

"This would actually more than double the research capacity of pea breeding on the public side in the United States," said Ken Grafton, NDSU's dean of agriculture. He said he was not aware of any private breeders in the country, though there are several in Europe.

McPhee said the NDSU breeding program, if approved, would not duplicate efforts in Washington. That program already has worked with NDSU, and a full-fledged North Dakota program would enhance that effort, he said.

"My intent from our program's perspective here is to support, complement, assist in the establishment of that program as it comes online," McPhee said.

Grafton said NDSU did something similar in 1980, when it created a dry bean breeding program in cooperation with an Agricultural Research Service program in Prosser, Wash.

Officials say a North Dakota pulse breeding program could focus on developing varieties more suited to the region's climate.

"The Pacific Northwest gets the majority of the precipitation for the growing season during the winter and then is relatively dry during the growing season, whereas the opposite is true in the Upper Midwest," McPhee said.

Bartsch said producers in the region also deal with different plant diseases.

"(A variety) suitable for the state of Idaho may not be suitable for the state of North Dakota," he said.

Developing new varieties is even more important now because some Canadian varieties suited to North Dakota no longer are publicly available. Bartsch said researchers north of the border have sold to private companies the international distribution rights to some of those varieties.

"We really need somebody in this region who can focus on specific issues in the region," he said.

The bill is HB1020.