The campaign to make chickpeas more profitable for northern graingrowers is to continue, with the Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) supporting a range of new research by the New South Wales Department of Primary Industries (NSWDPI).

Some of the work, to be led by NSWDPI Tamworth pathologist Kevin Moore, will improve disease management strategies developed in earlier GRDC supported research by the department and its Queensland counterpart (QDPI&F).

Other research, to be pursued in the latter stages of the three year project, is truly “blue sky”  – one component looking to boost chickpeas’ natural defence mechanisms to combat disease and another trying for biological control of disease through amended seed treatment.    

According to Dr Moore, the whole rationale of the project is to make growing chickpeas in the northern region – NSW north of the Macquarie River and Queensland – more profitable for growers.

“Chickpeas assist cereal production in the northern grains region, as they help solve declining soil fertility, weed problems and cereal disease,” Dr Moore says. ‘

“Management packages developed under our earlier GRDC supported research have helped chickpea production expand in the north, but they are incomplete to some degree and that – as well as the lack of disease resistant varieties – limits chickpeas acceptance by many growers.

“While the new varieties from the chickpea breeding program are less susceptible to Ascochyta blight, they will still need management. They are all susceptible to Botrytis grey mould and Phytophthora root rot continues to be a major threat.

“This new project will refine existing the Ascochyta packages to match economic constraints for current varieties and develop strategies for new ones. It will also develop a Botrytis package and improve fungicide efficiency.”

Dr Moore said while grower experience, and his own team’s trials in 2003, showed skipping one or two fungicide sprays was disastrous with very susceptible varieties like Jimbour, missing a spray with the new, Ascochyta resistant lines was much less serious.  

There were also gains to be made in improving the efficiency and persistence of fungicides, in the relationship between price, chickpea variety and crop stage and disease pressure levels,” Dr Moore said.