Six new combinable peas and a high protein winter bean have been added to the 2023 Processors and Growers Research Organisation (PGRO) Descriptive List.

One notable addition is a marrowfat pea that offers much improved powdery mildew resistance along with 10% extra yield over stalwart Sakura.

Yellow peas

In the yellow category, Senova’s Glam and Ajax from Limagrain join the list.

Glam has a yield of 108% and has the latest maturity (3) of the yellow peas, says PGRO senior technical officer Christopher Judge. While Ajax is slightly lower yielding at 103%, it has the highest resistance to powdery mildew.

Green peas

Carrington remains the top yielder at 115% and this year sees three additions – Butterfly (LSPB), Gotham (KWS) and Kiravi (Senova).

Butterfly, with its yield of 109%, has an earlier maturity and larger seed size than Carrington, says Mr Judge.

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Gotham and Kiravi are both later maturing varieties, with yields of 107% and 105%, respectively.

Marrowfat peas

Newcomer Takayama from LSPB becomes the top-yielding marrowfat at 96%, which is 10% higher than Sakura. It also stands out with its downy mildew rating of 6 – the best of the marrowfats.

However, Mr Judge points out that it is a bit smaller than the other marrowfats, with a thousand seed weight of 350g versus Sakura’s 382g.

Winter beans

Newcomer Bonneville from Senova has a yield of 102%, which is similar to Bumble and Norton. However, it has a better protein content of 26.5%, he says.

Mr Judge also highlights that new this year is data for downy mildew resistance and rust for winter beans. For downy mildew, most varieties have scored a 5, with Vincent (7) and Norton (6) having higher ratings.

Finally, four new high-yielding spring bean varieties have been flagged as potential additions, but, at the time of writing, have not received National List status so have not been added.

See the full Descriptive List at www.pgro.org. 

For all tables, disease scores are on a 1-9 scale, a high rating indicates that the variety shows the character to a high degree.