Arctic pea

There is potential for commercial pea cultivation in parts of the northern Nordic region and green harvest of peas is possible above the Arctic Circle. That is one of the conclusions from NordGen’s research project Arctic Pea.

Peas are the most important protein crop in the Nordic countries with a long cultivation tradition in our region. Today’s commercial pea cultivation is, however, limited to southern latitudes in the Nordic countries. But is there a potential to grow peas in more northern latitudes? 

This issue has been investigated in the Arctic Pea research project, which aims to identify genetic resources of peas that are suitable for plant breeding or can be grown directly in northern areas of the Nordic region. Results from the project have now been published in the scientific journal Frontiers in Plant Science.

The project used 50 accessions selected from NordGen’s pea collection, which includes over 2000 different types of peas. During the years 2018 and 2019, the selection of these was tested in four different locations in the Nordic region: Tromsø (Norway), Umeå (Sweden), Jokioinen (Finland) and Taastrup (Denmark).

The results showed that for the two southernmost cultivation sites, Taastrup and Jokioinen, full maturation was reached for all seed samples in both years. This means that it was possible to harvest dry peas. In the northernmost location, Tromsø, no plants reached full maturity. In 2018 though, 21 accessions reached green maturity and during 2019, 35 pea accessions reached the same stage.

Funding for the project was granted from the Nordic Council of Ministers’ Arctic cooperation program. A continuation of the project was possible with funding from Nordregio.