At a time when healthier and environmentally friendly diets are being sought, legumes are becoming increasingly important. Among the available grain legumes, peas are best suited to the climate and soil conditions in Saxony-Anhalt. As legumes, they are able to bind nitrogen from the air, which reduces the need for fertilizers. In addition, the cultivation of peas loosens up tight cereal crop rotations. This promotes soil health and makes a significant contribution to more sustainable agriculture. Peas are also healthy and an excellent source of functional vegetable protein.

In order to establish the pea as a crop of the future for Saxony-Anhalt and beyond, the entire value chain must be taken into account. The DiPisum project therefore combines expertise from plant breeding, plant production, processing and marketing. The project benefits from the extensive biodiversity of the pea, which is preserved in Europe's largest gene bank, the IPK Gatersleben. DiPisum focuses on innovative approaches in plant breeding as well as in the cultivation and processing of peas and aims to ensure that these innovations are also implemented in practice and widely used.

A key technological innovation that is revolutionizing plant breeding is the ability to read out information on genetic material at low cost. This opens up new opportunities to make pea breeding more efficient and faster. This development is particularly important in order to protect the pea from pathogens and drought stress, for example. The IPK is the place where the sequencing of cultivated plants with large genomes was first successfully implemented worldwide. We would like to build on this and develop a comprehensive genomic toolbox for pea breeding.

It usually takes more than a decade for innovations in breeding, production and processing to take full effect. We are therefore very grateful to politicians and citizens for the long-term funding option - a second funding phase has already been promised after the first. The motto of the first year of the project can best be summarized as “What belongs together grows together”. The first pea-based sausage alternatives, which were not only offered at this year's Green Week, certainly contributed to this productive cooperation.

DiPisum strives to enable high regional value creation through innovation. Existing markets are to be expanded and new markets developed, which should contribute to the creation of jobs in breeding, agriculture and the food industry in the long term. However, success depends largely on a return to traditional values, in which nutrition was strongly characterized by vegetable protein.

Interview: Beatrix Boldt