Insights into the performance of cereals and pulses for human food applications
Providing growers, researchers and industry stakeholders with practical information on the performance of selected cereal and pulse crops and their potential suitability for human food applications, a new factsheet has been published by the Protein-I Project.
Summarising the results of multi-year field trials evaluating cereal and pulse varieties under Irish growing conditions across both research sites and commercial farms throughout Ireland, the agronomic performance and grain quality characteristics of winter wheat, spring wheat, winter rye, winter barley and spring peas were assessed.
The findings highlight key agronomic considerations, quality characteristics and crop-specific opportunities and challenges observed during the trials.
“We have demonstrated that with hybrid rye varieties, we can achieve and exceed European milling market specifications, and for spring wheat, we can achieve European milling market specifications for several milling specific varieties,” explained Dr Susanne Barth, Principal Research Officer at the Teagasc Crops Research Centre in Oak Park, and one of the two principal investigators on the crop task in the Protein-I project.
However, Dr Barth continued: “When the required quality is achieved, a yield penalty is observed in milling varieties for which there is currently no monetary compensation.”
Professor Fiona Doohan, University College Dublin and the other principal investigator on the crop task of the Protein-I project, said: “This project has demonstrated the potential of Ireland to be more secure in the supply of tillage crops.
“There are challenges in growing some crops, which we must now address, but from the results it is also obvious that there is great potential to enhance the breeding and use of a more diverse range of native cereals for human food,” Professor Doohan added.
The research was carried out as part of the Protein-I project, a collaborative initiative focused on supporting the development of sustainable, healthy nutrition systems and increasing knowledge around Irish-grown plant protein crops. Protein-I is funded by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) and The Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA), grant number 2021R546.
Further information on the Protein-I project is available here.