Australia
July 30, 2007
Chickpeas are proving to be an
effective nitrogen-fixing break crop with the added bonus of
being a profitable crop for Central West NSW grain grower Stuart
Barden.
“Chickpeas have a low amount of biomass compared to virtually
all our options for break crops and this is probably why they
seem to work in this western environment,” Mr Barden said.
“They also have the potential to be very profitable in their own
right.”
Mr Barden told growers and advisers at the recent
Grains Research and Development
Corporation (GRDC) at Nyngan, NSW recently that chickpeas
were a relatively easy crop to grow in his region but warned of
an ascochyta blight risk in wet seasons.
“Chickpeas have a few more ingredients than wheat but if you do
the basics right they are quite a simple crop to grow,” he said.
“We will have wet seasons again in the future so I avoid growing
any chickpea variety that doesn’t have at least partial
resistance to ascochyta as this disease will dramatically
increase the management time and complexity, expense and
potential crop failures of chickpeas.”
Mr Barden said dry seasons had reduced the profile of ascochyta
in more recent years, although this disease threat should not be
taken lightly in the Central West as wetter seasons will return.
“Chickpeas also use less water from the profile in comparison to
crops such as canola and this is obviously of great advantage to
the following crop in our lower rainfall environment,” he said.
Mr Barden said chickpeas showed a wide adaptability to various
soil types and although high clay sodic country was not
suitable, the crops grew well in fertile black or red soil.
“We are growing Flipper* at Condobolin and Yorker* at Warren and
Collie,” he said.
“Flipper doesn’t handle the disease phytophthora very well
although it has very good ascochyta resistance.
“Yorker has better phytophthora resistance and so we use this
variety at Warren and Collie as phytophthora can be an issue on
these heavier soils.
“We are also growing a small area of Genesis 90 C* at
Condobolin, which is a small Kabuli type but still bigger than
Desi types such as Flipper and Yorker.”
Mr Barden is confident GRDC-supported research will result in
new and better varieties released each year and doesn’t expect
to be growing these varieties in two season’s time.
He said chickpeas thrived in cereal stubbles and this also
offered the added benefit of moisture retention.
Mr Barden planted Flipper* at Condobolin using our standard 400
millimetre row spacing at a planting rate of 47 kilograms per
hectare of seed and 40kg of MAP.
While low, this seeding rate achieved around 20-22 plants per
square metre.
“Yorker has a larger seed size so at Warren and Collie we plant
at between 45-50kg/ha depending on time of planting and the seed
size.
“Yorker is generally planted on 800mm rows as ascochyta is still
a potential issue with this variety and if we were planting
Yorker after the first week in June then I would go back to
400mm rows.
“Our planters all have 30mm spear points and press wheels.”
Mr Barden said both Yorker* and Flipper* were slower maturing
than varieties such as Jimbour and he planted Flipper* and
Yorker* after May 10 at Condobolin and Warren and May 13 at
Collie.
He said chickpeas were not very competitive, particularly on
800mm rows so he carried out knockdown weed control preplanting
followed by a post-sowing pre-emergent residual spray.
“There are probably five different good combinations of
chemistry that are quite often much cheaper and just as
effective as the much better promoted but no safer chemistry –
do some investigating, it is well worth it.
“On lighter soils like our Condobolin farm we some times split
the residual chemical and put a percentage on with the knockdown
control so to reduce the amount of chemical over the plant line.
“We would do this if we thought it could rain within the follow
week or so.”
The heliothis threat is monitored and one insecticide
application will usually be required.
“We would expect to apply a least one fungicide spray on Yorker*
for ascochyta control and we watch the Flipper* and Gen 90 C*
but in our environment I don’t expect to have to spray those
varieties for ascochyta.”
Last season was the first time Mr Barden didn’t desiccate
pre-harvest due to the drought conditions.
“I would desiccate in the majority of seasons as it does a
number of things, including starting the fallow, bringing
harvest forward significantly (particularly in a wetter/softer
finish), and makes it a lot easier to harvest at a more even and
higher moisture content as the crop doesn’t have patches of
green through it with other patches over-ripe.”
Mr Barden said harvesting at the optimum moisture could result
in the sample straight out the header containing what appeared
to be too many greenish/yellowish seeds but given 12-24 hours
the sample would look ‘fantastic’ as the moisture evens out
throughout the sample.
“From my experience if the sample has no greenish/yellowish
seeds when harvested then it probably should have harvested a
couple of days prior,” he said.
*Varieties protected under the Plant Breeders Rights Act
1994. |
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