Growing Pulse Crops

Kim Sauressig is a fourth generation farmer in Central North Dakota where he grows a wide range of crops including corn, wheat, durum, barley, soybeans, lentils, chickpeas and pinto beans. He also raised cattle until a few years ago when they decided to focus exclusively on crops. When not farming, Kim chairs the North Dakota Dry Pea & Lentil Council and has a seat on the USA Dry Pea & Len...

At the time of this interview, Steve Sebesta was the director of the Foundation Seed Program at North Dakota State University and the Deputy Commissioner of the North Dakota State Seed Department. Steve has since retired from these positions, so we were very lucky to capture his years of experience and expertise in this area before his retirement. In this episode, Steve discusses the critical role...

Nicole Atchison is the CEO of PURIS Holdings, a vertically-integrated plant-based food company that operates from field to fork in primarily yellow peas. Nicole leads the agriculture side of the business, including contracting with growers, seed development and breeding, and innovation in product development. Her brother Tyler leads the ingredient side of the business. PURIS operates throughout th...

Dr. Eric von Wettberg is a professor at the University of Vermont and the director of the Vermont Agriculture Experiment Station. His research program focuses on understanding crop domestication as a means to harness the diversity of crop wild relatives to breed crops with improved climate resilience and stress tolerance. In this episode we discuss Von Wettberg’s work in pulses, his adventures in...

Charlie Cahill developed his knowledge of dryland farming during the 1990s, ultimately becoming what one nominator called “the go-to guy” for information on agronomic practices and seed genetics in the region. A graduate of Montana State University, Cahill has served on the board of the Montana Seed Growers Association and helped create the pulse checkoff program in Montana, which allows growers a...

Dr. Michelle Hubbard leads a field, greenhouse, growth chamber and lab based research program at Agriculture and AgriFood Canada, a part of the Canadian federal government. Based in Swift Current, Saskatchewan, her work focuses on pulse pathology, including important diseases like ascochyta blight of chickpea, root rot of pea and lentil and anthracnose of lentil. Hubbard discusses a mystery illnes...

Dr. Tom Warkentin is a professor at the University of Saskatchewan where he is part of a team at the Crop Development Center. He has been a pulse crop breeder for about 30 years, mostly focused on field peas. Warkentin discusses the progress of his pulse crop breeding program over the decades, including varieties that have had a big impact on the industry. He also shares how he balances the need t...

Zack Bateson is the Research Manager at the National Ag Genotyping Center based in Fargo, North Dakota. You heard a little bit about the work the National Genotyping Center is doing in episode five with Dr. Brian Jenks.  In this episode we dive deeper into the services they offer to provide DNA testing for farmers and agronomists. Bateson got his start in DNA-based testing working in wildlife...

Dr. Brian Jenks is a weed scientist at North Dakota State University based in Minot. He has been in this role since 1997 and over that time he has seen an alarming rise in resistance to many of our herbicides from certain weeds, especially in kochia. In this episode Jenks discusses the resistance problem and some of the work underway to help farmers manage these weeds that are getting tougher ever...

Dr. Chris Graham is an associate professor at South Dakota State University. He’s also the manager of the West River Research Farm near Sturgis, South Dakota. At that facility they focus a lot on regenerative agriculture, including doing a lot of work with peas and other pulses to extend crop rotations in that semi-arid region in the western part of the state. Graham shares about pulse production...

Dr. Breanne Tidemann is a research scientist with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada based in Lacombe, Alberta. As a weed scientist, her job is to explore new and novel ways to manage weeds. Her focus is to research applied management strategies, weed biology and ecology, and screening for herbicide resistance. In this episode, Tidemann discusses the work she has been leading in Canada on the effect...

Farmer and Northern Pulse Growers Association president Sam Arnson and executive director Shannon Berndt join us to talk about their work at NPGA, the importance of bringing the industry together to fund research, marketing and education efforts, and how other pulse growers can get involved. They share what NPGA has accomplished and what the future holds for northern pulse growers in the region. “...

In this episode we’re looking at a new pulse crop: sweet white lupins . Dr. Mike Ostlie is the director of the Carrington Research Extension Center at North Dakota State University. In the early 2000s a private company that was developing lupin varieties had gone out of business and the germplasm was given to NDSU to work on varieties. Now they’re close to releasing new varieties and Ostlie joins...

Take our audience survey and let us know your feedback about the Growing Pulse Crop Podcast! Whether you’re from Nebraska or elsewhere, this is a great episode about what’s possible for the future of pulse crops. We talk about peas and chickpeas, but we also get into other niche opportunities like mung beans, cowpeas and more. You’ll get a sense of the emerging pulse industry in Nebraska, but also...

Take our audience survey and let us know your feedback about the Growing Pulse Crop Podcast! Terry Angvick farms in Sheridan County, Montana which is in the extreme Northeastern corner of the state. He was born, raised there and came back after earning a plant and soil science degree from Montana State University. In his first career, he spent 31 years as the Sheridan County Extension Agent, a pos...

Take our audience survey and let us know your feedback about the Growing Pulse Crop Podcast! Dr. Steve Van Vleet spent about 18 years as a regional extension specialist for Washington State University, and today is a research agronomist with The McGregor Company . For most of his career, pulses have been an important part of his work, and he joins us to talk about his excitement for the potential...

Eric Bartsch is the division head for global food ingredients at AGT Foods based in Bismarck, North Dakota. He’s been with the company for 16 years and through that time they have grown from just a couple factories to now over 45 facilities and $2B in sales. Processing peas, lentils, chickpeas, fava beans and dry edible beans has been their primary focus since they were founded in 2002. While they...

At the time of this interview Dr. Abbey Wick was the associate professor and extension soil health specialist at North Dakota State University. She has since gone on to a new role after nearly 12 years at NDSU. She is now the Global Soil Health Education Program Lead at Syngenta. We talk about what is motivating more farmers to want to try new practices on their farms to improve their soil health,...

Dr. Drew Lyon is a Professor and the Endowed Chair of Small Grains Extension and Research for Weed Science at Washington State University in Pullman. Prior to moving to Washington in 2012, he spent 22 years as a Dryland Cropping Systems Specialist at the University of Nebraska at the Panhandle Research and Extension Center in Scottsbluff. His endowment is from the WA Grain Commission, so he spends...

Jeannie Rude is an agronomist at PRO Co-op in Northeast Montana. She manages part of the co-op’s business to help growers make decisions, solve agronomic problems, and provide inputs. Overall, Rude works with 13 different crops on an annual basis. She is acutely aware of how much her job and the success of her cooperative hinges on the viability of the farmer customers that they serve.  “I lo...

Dr. Barney Geddes is an assistant professor at North Dakota State University in the Department of Microbiological Sciences. His work focuses on microbes with the goal of boosting crop yields for farmers. More specifically he studies rhizobia which form symbiotic relationships with legume crops like pulses. In this episode, Geddes explains how nodulation works and what that means for farm decisions...

Dr. Perry Miller is a cropping systems scientist in the Land Resources and Environmental Sciences Dept at Montana State University. A large portion of the work Dr. Miller does includes working with pulse crops and how they can make other crops, namely wheat, grow better. Part one of this episode was published as episode two in this season and focused on crop diversification and fertility. In this...

Dr. Michael Wunsch is a Plant Pathologist at the Carrington Research Extension Center at North Dakota State University. He holds a Ph. D. from Cornell University in 2010, and has worked for NDSU ever since and focused on disease management problems on a wide breadth of crops grown in North Dakota. Michael’s focus is on applied research that can directly address farmer needs. In this episode we foc...

Aphids are known for the destruction they can cause due to feeding damage. But they can also be responsible for transmitting harmful viruses into the crops. In this episode we hear from Dr. Lyndon Porter is a plant pathologist at USDA-ARS based in Prosser, Washington, Dr. Sean Prager is an associate professor of entomology at the University of Saskatchewan and Dr. Sanford Eigenbrode is a professor...

Dr. Nonoy Bandillo is an assistant professor and pulse crops breeder who directs the pulse crops breeding program at North Dakota State University. He says their ultimate goal at the program is to develop and release varieties that maximize economic return to producers and to provide high quality crops to the pulse crops industry. In this episode we discuss key challenges in pulse crops that are b...