New arrangement involving McGill keeps bean breeding program alive at AAFC Morden

The dry bean breeding program at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s Morden Research Centre in Manitoba will continue for at least another five years under a new arrangement involving McGill University in Quebec and AAFC’s Harrow Research Centre in Ontario.

An earlier proposal from the federal government would have seen the program cut or moved to Ontario entirely, but Manitoba Pulse and Soybean Growers (MPSG) executive director Daryl Domitruk says MPSG was successful in negotiating an agreement that will maintain funding to develop new pinto, black, and navy bean varieties with improved disease resistance in Manitoba.

MPSG will be contributing just over $300 thousand to the $2 million-plus program over the next five years, notes Domitruk. The federal funding is part of the new five-year $11 million Pulse Research Cluster that the federal government announced last week, under the Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership.

The new arrangement will allow breeders in Morden to tap into innovative plant breeding techniques that are being developed at the Harrow Research Center in Ontario and at McGill University in Quebec,” he says.