Stakeholder Meeting at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
Following the success of last year, the 2025 PCGIN Stakeholder meeting (27 February) was again held in conjunction with the UK Legume Research Community meeting (25 – 26 February). Our wonderful host and organizer was Caspar Chater who is a Senior Research Leader at Kew Gardens. We were privileged to use the Atrium and Lady Lisa lecture theatre of the Jodrell Laboratory, with access to the gardens. There were 103 delegates, including representatives from 17 companies and 6 other organisations (in total 28 non-academic participants).
The programme is traditionally divided in four parts and we added a one-hour workshop on premium traits.
Updates on PCGIN Research:
An hour is too short to summarize all the great research funded by PCGIN, but Janneke Balk (JIC), Donal O’Sullivan (U of Reading), Tom Wood (NIAB) and Catherine Howarth (IBERS) gave it a go. The genetic resources for both pea and faba bean are being expanded by JIC and Reading. New genome sequences of pea have >99% coverage and greatly facilitate gene identification for important traits. In addition to the previously developed pea diversity panel, JIC now has two mutant populations, one created using fast neutrons and one with EMS from which lines with altered protein or increased iron, respectively, have been isolated. Donal’s group is involved in a faba bean ‘pan-genome’ sequencing project and also has exome-sequenced a proportion of its EMS population. They are screening for traits such as seed size, total protein and low phytic acid. At NIAB, new resistances for foot rot and downy mildew have been identified in faba bean and transferred to breeding companies. Finally, Catherine gave a taste of the National Plant Phenomics Centre at IBERS, Aberystwyth, and pilot projects to use the facility to screen for drought resistance and root development in legumes.
Student and ECR presentations:
- Jacob Pullin (JIC) – Fortifying our future: Increasing the iron content of plant foods.
- Kara Boyd (JIC) – Identification and characterization of genetics sources of resistance to pea downy mildew.
- Tamy Jithesh (Harper Adams/PGRO) – Investigating the effect of fertilizers on BNF in faba bean.
- Satish Kumar Eeda (NIAB) – Regeneration and transformation of faba bean.
- Callie Rice (University of Reading) – Connecting phenotype to genotype in a viviparous faba bean mutant.
Perspectives from Industry:
Elise Cocciantelli from Limagrain gave the first talk in this session, with the view from France on the UK pulse breeding industry. A challenge for them is that the UK market is segmented in 5 pulse crops (round-seeded pea; marrowfat pea; vining pea; spring beans and winter beans) each with different needs for farmers. There are many breeding targets and it would be good to better prioritize (or deprioritize) some.
Tom Allen-Stevens introduced us to BOFIN – the British On-Farm Innovation Network. Launched in September 2020, farmers carry out on-farm trials for which they get paid. BOFIN is involved in various UKRI/Industry-funded projects, such as NCS (N for Nitrogen and C for Climate), which aims to reduce CO2 from farming by increasing the area of UK legumes to 20% and replacing 50% of soya imports; slug-resistant wheat varieties; and development of a field sensor for foot rots in legume crops, among other projects.
Robin Baines shared his experience of growing chickpeas in Norfolk. The 3-year project was a collaboration between NIAB, Premium Seeds, Viridian and Place UK to test different varieties and farming practices (e.g. drilling time, planting density and weed control). An area of 10 ha in 2022 gave a decent yield of 1.4 t/ha. In 2023 this was expanded to 30 ha, but yielded only 0.3 t/ha because of terrible weather and late drilling. In 2024, 2 t/ha was harvested. Robin says “yes, we can grow chickpeas (and lentils) in the UK. However, the risk for farmers is high which would need to be mitigated by e.g. subsidies, or tariffs on imports.”
The fourth slot was reserved for a pulse processing company but they could not make it and Andrew Lovett from the University of East Anglia kindly stepped in to tell us about land use in the UK relevant to pulse growing. Crop distribution data from the Land Cover Plus database shows that “Peas and Beans” have been grown on 3% or less of agricultural land (including grass). The main growth areas are along the NE coast, East Midlands, parts of East Anglia and Kent. Pulses are mainly used in rotation schemes of 3 crops or more. The gross margins are low, in most years less than £500/ha. Andrew also highlighted how climate change is likely to affect bean cultivation, with central England likely to become too hot and dry.
Invited Speakers:
Jose de Vega from the Earlham Institute talked about “Advances in genomic tools for UK legume breeding”. A new method called Genomic Selection (GS), based on sequence and phenotypic data, is complementary to marker assisted breeding. It can also help to minimize the number of test plots, which can save overall costs: While genome sequencing has become cheaper, field trials are expensive. Jose highlighted two important online resources: Grassroots Genomics, a database for field trials used by the EU Legume Regeneration project; and PulseDB for finding markers. He is also working on building new marker sets based on 1x skim-sequencing of a population.
Sabine Banniza from the University of Saskatchewan in Canada joined us via a Teams link. Her research focuses on root rots in pea and lentil caused by Aphanomyces euteichus and several Fusarium species, which present a major problem throughout Canada. The genetics of the pathogens is complex, with particular isolates actually consisting of 4 – 6 different species. QTLs for Aphanomyces resistance were identified by the INRA in France and used for a pea breeding programme, with resulting lines showing slightly better resistance in the field. A GWAS study in pea showed that resistance to Fusarium avenaceum is correlated with seed coat pigmentation and 2 loci on Chr6. Lentil suffers from the same root rot pathogens as pea, however, resistances of a wild relative, Lens orientalis, have successfully been introgressed. Moving forward, the challenges to control root rot are that the current lack of resistant varieties and longevity of the pathogens in the soil.
Workshop on premium traits for UK pulses
Low financial returns and yield instability disincentivize farmers from growing pulses, with the UK growth area pretty much static at 2.5-3% since 2016 (data from Andrew Lovett, see 2025 Stakeholder Meeting report). Defra would like to see this increase to 20% but how can this be achieved?
One of the objectives of the new PCGIN programme is to explore and then prioritize genetic traits that can help push up farmgate prices. While this is an old topic, it is timely again because of the growing market for pulses as a sustainable, high-protein crop and PCGIN’s new genetic resources. We kicked off with an open discussion during the Stakeholder meeting, which will be followed up with individual consultancies and a final report due in September this year (2025).
First, James Wallace (IAR Agri) and Michael Shuldham (NPZ) summarized the current issues. Nick Saltmarsh from the retailer Hodmedods was also meant to speak but had to cancel last moment.
James Wallace has decades of experience in pulse breeding and trading. His key points for peas:
- Grower return = harvested yield x price
- Premium prices can be obtained for human consumption, not for animal feed.
- Don’t breed for a trait that can be obtained by post-harvest processing!
Potential premium traits:
Whole peas: colour; taste; texture and functionality
Pea flour as ingredient: protein content and type; starch type; colour; taste and texture; anti-nutrition factors; functionality
Fractionation products: starch, protein, fibre
Niche markets such as pet foods, nutritional specials and sprouting peas
Michael Shuldham is Pulse Product Manager at NPZ. His key messages:
- Pulse breeding and bulking seeds takes years and is a costly investment for breeders if the seed is not sold / planted.
- Policy incentives are needed for longer term views and change.
The audience was divided in a “beans” and “peas” group for discussion.
Peas: The discussion focused on winter peas; harvestibility; and protein quality.
Winter peas: The main benefits of winter peas are removal of residual N fertilizer from soils and early growth prior to drought spells later in the spring. They are already grown but at a very small scale. This means most of the crop is eaten by pigeons, but larger-scale growing and pigeon control could fix this. Wet winters are an issue for planting and weed control, which will become more frequent according to climate-change models.
Harvestibility: For combining, plants need to be 50 cm tall and stand up. Semi-leafless varieties (a genetically well-researched trait) help with this, but the less dense canopy encourages weeds. We could look at thicker, stiffer stems and a few plants with this trait were noted in the pea EMS population at JIC.
Protein quality: While total seed protein receives a lot of attention currently, it was noted that a protein-rich flour can simply be obtained by air fractionation. Recent PCGIN-funded studies have shown a remarkable variation in the relative abundance of major storage proteins. However, this has not been linked to functional properties and food industries are not yet clear on what properties they want. There seems to be an opportunity for a UKRI or Defra-funded project, followed by breeding for specific seed protein profiles.
Beans: The discussion focused on yield stability under heat/drought, protein, Bruchid resistance and Aphid resistance.
Yield stability in conditions of heat and drought stress: episodes of heat and/or drought have been observed to cause excessive shedding of flowers and early pod abortion. This will be addressed in the new PCGIN programme, with an objective to identify an ideotype whose flowers and young pods are more tolerant than current elite varieties of combinations of high temperatures and limited water availability. We need to recognize though that this is a highly complex target which may involve root architecture, stomatal traits and altered phenology.
Relatively low protein content is perceived as the greatest limitation on demand for faba bean if it were to replace soya as the preferred source of protein for animal feed and certain alternative protein food applications. Funding to the University of Reading is addressing this trait (https://fabaplus.com)
Bruchid resistance was the third top priority in this discussion. Although not considered by industry as a major burden on yields when used for animal feed, it has the potential to greatly reduce the amount of crop suitable for human consumption.
Aphid resistance was the fourth challenge to garner votes. Aphid attacks can be severe, but the longer term concern are the viruses carried by aphids and some of these can be transmitted through seed.
