Читать книгу Quinoa - Atul Bhargava - Страница 47

In the USA, quinoa represents one of the relatively few successful introductions of a new food plant. Quinoa has been cultivated in the USA since the early 1980s and commercially produced since the mid-1980s in the Colorado Rockies, especially in the San Luis Valley. The first commercial crop was produced in Colorado in 1987 on five farms after a processing facility was provided by Pillsbury Company to remove saponins from the pericarp (Oelke et al., 1992). About a dozen ecotypes were selected from various regions of South America that had characteristics matching the high, semi-arid mountain valleys and plains of Colorado (Cusack, 1984). Most of the quinoa varieties seemed to be well adapted to high altitudes and cool temperatures. Seed yield at 2000 m above sea level in Colorado was 1000 kg/ha. The North American Quinoa Producers Association was formed in 1988 and a small processing plant was started for the crop produced in the area. Production has also been attempted in California, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington.

In other parts of the US, quinoa has been successfully grown at high elevations; at lower elevations considerable pollen sterility and poor seed set has been observed (Bhardwaj et al., 1996). The quinoa cultivars adapted for production at elevations above 2300 m in Colorado failed to produce viable seeds at Moscow, Idaho (Kephart et al., 1990). In North Dakota, good stands of the crop were obtained at three southern locations, but serious insect problems were encountered in these areas (Berti and Schneiter, 1993). In 1992–93, quinoa was grown near Blacksburg and at the Northern Piedmont Agricultural Experiment Station in Orange County (Bhardwaj et al., 1996). The average seed yield at the Blacksburg location was 2804 kg/ha. However, in 1992 seed set did not occur, probably due to the warm weather. In 2010, 44 varieties of quinoa representing a broad diversity of regions and environmental conditions were grown in three locations in Washington State (Port Townsend, Olympia and Pullman). Data were collected for traits like emergence, aphid resistance, plant height, lodging and grain maturity. Of these 44 varieties, 11 superior varieties were chosen for inclusion in larger scale variety × nitrogen fertility trials in Pullman in 2011. These 11 varieties were also evaluated in the greenhouse under three different nitrogen regimes. The results of these detailed trials are awaited.

In the late 1980s/early 1990s, some farmers in Alberta successfully grew quinoa. Research at the Crop Diversification Centre South in Brooks, Alberta has demonstrated that quinoa can be successfully grown in Southern Alberta (AAFRD, 2005). The north-eastern Saskatchewan region in Canada resembles the Andean region in climate and is most suitable for cultivation of quinoa. The Northern Quinoa Company (NQC) is a specialty grain and food processing company located at Kamsack, Saskatchewan, Canada. In Saskatchewan, yields are said to be highly variable, and can be up to 2000 lb per acre. In this area the average yield over the 2000–2004 season was said to be in the range 750–1250 lb per acre. In terms of quality, the quinoa crop in Saskatchewan is somewhat smaller and darker in colour than the South American exports. Quinoa is currently grown in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, about 80% grown organically. Approximately 1600 acres of quinoa was grown in Saskatchewan in 2005, primarily to supply the NQC in Kamsack (AAFRD, 2005). Quinoa could successfully be adapted to the Canadian Prairies because it was known that the crop has also done well in field trials in Northern Michigan, where it is not the elevation, but the temperature that is critical to the proper development of the quinoa plant.