There is an increasing commercial demand for plant varieties resistant to climate change and diseases, more productive with fewer inputs... There is also a growing interest for recovering native varieties, whose conservation contributes to the maintenance of biodiversity. The CSIC in Galicia works to recover varieties of interest.
Bagoa peas, with their characteristic teardrop shape. Image: MBG-CSIC
The Biological Mission of Galicia, a CSIC center with locations in Pontevedra and Santiago, has been working on the recovery of legumes since the decade of 1987-1997, when their experts began the collection of bean germplasm. At that time, the scientific team in Pontevedra characterized and evaluated various 'Faba' (the Galician name for beans) varieties that were preserved in the germplasm collection. Different varieties emerged from that collection, including Do Marisco and Galaica.
'Faba do Marisco' is a bean variety, a mix of several pure lines from Lourenzá (Lugo, Spain). It is a native Galician variety of low growth, adapted to production in horticultural areas of Northern Spain. With excellent sensory quality, it is ideal for pairing with seafood products, and it has a good production yield (in experimental cultivation, it yields about 1500 kg per hectare).
Another variety recovered by the MBG team is the 'Faba Galaica'. Its characteristics make it highly sought after by consumers. It has exceptional culinary quality, due to its low skin proportion (between 8-10%), its high-water absorption capacity, exceeding 100%, and its cooking behaviour, which keeps the grain whole and intact. After cooked, it has a smooth texture without lumps and where its skin is hardly distinguishable.
Both the Do Marisco and Galaica beans have the Protected Geographical Indication of Faba de Lourenzà and are already in production under non-exclusive license contracts, therefore other companies can show interest.
The newest one: Bágoa Atlantic pea
The MBG has also more recently obtained a new pea variety, Bágoa Atlantic, very rustic and with low input demand.
It is a pure line of pea (Pisum sativum L.), obtained through individual selection within a local variety from Monfero (A Coruña). It exhibits indeterminate growth (medium staking) and has strong early growth, is very tough, and needs few agrochemicals. It begins flowering 130 days after autumn-winter sowing, and the pod for harvesting the immature fresh grain appears in about 150 days. The grain is very small in size, and in its immature state, it has a teardrop shape, hence this type of grain is called "tear pea" or in Galician "Guisante Bágoa". Its sensory quality is excellent, especially appreciated in ‘Haute cuisine’
Among its advantages, it is very productive (in experimental cultivation, it has yielded about 1000 kg/ha of immature grain); the grain can be consumed both fresh and dry. With a high economic value in the market, its sensory quality is excellent, based on the grain's texture, high water content, and soluble solids, which give it characteristics that make it considered "vegetable caviar".
The variety, registered since April 2023 in the Spanish Office of Plant Varieties (OEVV in its Spanish acronym) and already exploited by two companies, was presented at an event a few days ago.
As CSIC sources explained during the presentation, "A plant variety cannot be marketed if it is not registered with the OEVV and, as far as is known, there is no registered variety of this type of pea. For this reason, the 'tear peas' currently on the market and in some restaurants are not the result of a genetic improvement process. Generally, producers use commercial varieties of table peas that were registered a long time ago and harvest the grain very early to achieve the desired teardrop shape," added the CSIC.
Following the registration, the MBG initiated a process of seeking agreements with companies to sign exploitation license contracts, a contractual modality that allows third parties to commercially exploit the protected variety to bring it to market. The main objective is for the improved varieties, the result of years of research, to leave research centers and reach the market so that all of society can benefit from them, while also contributing to the maintenance of biodiversity.
Contact:
Alba M Martínez Pérez
Vicepresidencia de Innovación
y Transferencia - CSIC