Challenging WA environments have again tested researchers, this time with wild yield variations in extra-large seeded kabuli chickpea in the Ord River Irrigation Scheme (ORIA).

The ORIA extends 350 km inland from the state’s far north, covering 47,000 km² and collecting annual rainfall ranging from 800 – 450 mm across the region. It sustains a $1 million per annum chickpea industry.

However, ORIA chickpea growers have faced erratic fortunes, with average yields bouncing from 2.0 – 3.5 tonnes per hectare and neighbouring crops varying from 1.0 – 4.0 t/ha.

But pioneering research, supported by the Grains Research & Development Corporation (GRDC), at the Department of Agriculture and the Centre For Legumes in Mediterranean Agriculture (CLIMA), simultaneously aimed to generate agronomic packages to stabilise yields and develop alternate varieties to the incumbent, Macarena.

The ORIA chickpea industry enjoys strong market demand and with consistent production and quality, this could grow to an annual production value of $4 million, according to project leader and CLIMA Director, Kadambot Siddique.

Grower surveys and field trials identified irrigation timing and seed-bed height as the dominant factors affecting performance and broad adoption of more uniform management strategies is stabilising yields in the area.

Based on understanding environments where irrigated large seeded chickpea was produced in other parts of the world, Professor Siddique, as part of the GRDC funded project, imported novel plant germplasm from Spain and Mexico, via the International Centre for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas.

Fifty-five of the international lines and 20 genotypes selected from ‘off-type’ Macarena plants were tested for quality, yield and agronomic characteristics at Kununurra between 1998 -2002.

Seed colour and cooking tests of the three best lines at the Department of Agriculture’s Pulse Quality Laboratory confirmed they had similar or superior qualities to Macarena, with 13 to 23 per cent higher yields and larger seed size than Macarena. In the 2003 season, the three lines will undergo further commercial bulk up by growers in the ORIA.