While the market for yellow pea varieties has typically been for animal feed, demand is reportedly growing for human consumption.
To meet this, NPZ UK offers Concerto and Orchestra, both of which are said to be high-yielding and are included on the PGRO Descriptive List.
Edina Kare, NPZ UK’s pulse breeder, comments: “Concerto has good standing ability, early flowering time, early maturity and medium to tall plants. It also has good resistance to Downy mildew and is resistant to Pea wilt.
“Our breeding work is on track to bring further improvements to yellow pea varieties to do our part in developing the yellow pea crop UK in the future.”
Viruses in the crop can cause losses of up to 25%, with visible symptoms including stunting, shortening, downward rolling of leaves, vein clearing and apical malformation.
Breeding work is currently focused on varietal resistance, using markers and phenotyping. According to NPZ, the new variety Iconic, which is currently in Descriptive List trials, also boasts bean yellow mosaic virus resistance.
The company also has a green pea variety in the pipeline, with pea seed-borne mosaic virus resistance.