DAQ500 - Extensive dryland pulse development in Queensland - Component 1: Southern Queensland and Component 2: Central Queensland

Project Start Date 1 July 2000
Project End Date 30 June 2003
Supervisor Name Kevin McCosker (Research Scientist)
Organisation Queensland Department of Primary Industries
Contact name Kevin McCosker
Region North
Summary

The primary objective of this project has been to improve grower confidence in the major pulse crops, chickpeas and mungbeans. Only three to five years ago, growers and agronomists in Queensland (Qld) did not have reliable, locally derived information on key fundamental aspects of production such as:

Plant population and row spacing: Region specific experiments have provided firm recommendations on optimal plant populations and row spacings for chickpeas and mungbeans growers in the northern grain belt.

Weed control: Area and weed specific experiments have provided growers and agronomists with practical solutions to what was perhaps the greatest barrier to increasing pulse crop area - a perceived lack of reliable weed control options.

Insect control: Several experiments and development and extension activities have focused on improving grower and agronomist understanding of the importance of sound insect management. This project has collaborated with and identified issues for other projects to address.

Time of sowing: Rigorous and comprehensive time of sowing studies have been conducted for mungbeans during the life of this project. Findings have served to change the perception that mungbeans have a relatively narrow sowing window in the northern region. This project has also led the way in promoting moisture-seeking in chickpeas, a practice which primarily provides opportunity to sow at the optimal time. This is especially important with the currently available suite of chickpea varieties.

Disease prevention and management: This project has interacted closely with GRDC - funded pulse pathology activities in providing and extending management strategies for various diseases including powdery mildew in mungbeans, and botrytis grey mould and ascochtya blight in chickpeas. The project has been instrumental in formulating and extending management strategies to maintain Central Queensland's (CQ) status as an ascochyta-free production area.

Optimal harvest practices: The project has provided seminal information regarding the (now widespread) practice of crop desiccation in mungbeans and chickpeas. Further to the aspects of timing and impact on yield, quality, and end-user safety, the project has been highly involved in developmental extension through information products and on-farm work with farming systems projects. The project has also played a key role in providing data necessary for registration of desiccants for both mungbeans and chickpeas.

Understanding market requirements: The project has organised and fostered activities to increase grower awareness of value chains in pulses, such as visits to packing and sprouting operations and to commodity loading ports. Results from all experiments are generally reported in a manner, which allows an appreciation of the importance of quality and yield on profitability.

Product registrations: This project has actively explored options for new chemical registrations where specific problems exist, eg post-emergent weed control in chickpeas and control of rhizoctonia in seedling chickpeas. It has also collaborated with other projects (JAY3/JAY4) in ensuring that rigorous data for necessary product registrations is obtained as rapidly as possible. In all, three chemical registrations have resulted from research conducted in this project.

This project then has focused on addressing these knowledge gaps using R,D&E where appropriate. Some issues have required a degree of basic and applied research, while others have been furthered through experimental development or purely through targeted extension of existing knowledge. The project team has fostered close and highly productive relationships with other projects, growers and grower groups, extension officers and commercial agronomists as a means of maintaining situation awareness and ensuring timely extension of outcomes and recommendations.

Conclusions

The detail of R&D activities that have not previously been reported to GRDC is contained in Attachment 3. Broad conclusions drawn at this point in time are summarised below:

Faba beans:

This project has collaborated with Ian Rose from the National Faba bean Breeding Project in Narrabri. Breeding trials have been conducted at seven Queensland (QLD) sites and the data used to support the release of Cairo in 2003.

Field peas:

This project has collaborated with Steve Moore from the New South Wales (NSW) Field Pea Breeding Program based in Narrabri. QLD data from three sites were used to support the release of Kylie in 2001 and YarrumPlant Breeders Rights in 2003. The data will also support the release of Boreen in 2004 and 92-104P5*6 in 2005.

Mungbeans:

This project has collaborated intensely with DAQ00003, JAY3/4, CSP361, and DAQ56 (R Sequeira) in conducting and extending relevant information on best management practices for dryland mungbean growers, to the extent that many of the most crucial knowledge gaps have been filled. The logical path for continued expansion of the mungbean industry in Australia is in the irrigated farming systems, where reliability of supply and high quality product are distinct advantages. With tailored management packages, supplementary mungbean production from irrigated areas may provide the level of reliability necessary to provide the industry with a long-term sustainable future.

Chickpeas:

Similarly, many of the straightforward, issues important to chickpea production in dryland farming systems have been resolved. Accordingly, growers and agronomists are now very confident and are beginning to see how well adapted chickpeas are to the water limited environments of QLD (Attachment 2). Realising the full potential of chickpeas will require a continued R,D&E effort to maximise the benefits obtainable through moisture-seeking technology, movement into more marginal (sodic) environments, and into irrigated cropping systems. Following the severe disease impacts upon the 2003 chickpea crop, ongoing development of disease management practices and strategies is required.

The pulse success story in QLD can be largely attributed to the development of close relationships between the pulse team and growers, agronomists, and other projects. This has enabled continued relevance of the work conducted, and rapid meaningful dissemination of information from the R,D&E program.

Recommendations

Mungbeans

Varieties: White GoldPlant Breeders Rights offers an increased level of performance and consistency compared to other varieties. This is especially pronounced in CQ, where Delta also stands out from other varieties. In southern Qld the differences between varieties is not as pronounced but still significant.

Crop Desiccation: Formulations of glyphosate# offer a cheap, safe, equally effective means of desiccating mungbeans pre-harvest, with the advantage of providing superior control of weeds and volunteer mungbeans.

Weed Control: The herbicide Blazer®# offers effective weed control with acceptable levels of phytotoxicity on all varieties, including White Gold.

Time of Sowing: The mungbean sowing window is from September to late February in Qld. Spring sowing dates offer high yield potential relative to conventional summer sowing dates. Late sowing dates also have merit, but rely on strict attention to control of powdery mildew. Powdery mildew is simple and inexpensive to control if correct practices are followed.

Plant Population and Row Spacing: In dryland conditions growers should aim to establish 30plants/m2 regardless of row spacing. Plant height and yield may be improved slightly through the use of wide row spacing under typical dryand conditions. Under irrigated conditions, this is not likely to be the case - work on sowing configurations is ongoing.

Rhizobium Delivery: The new variety White Gold nodulates effectively with CB1015. Water injecting inoculum may be a superior method of delivering rhizobia to the zone of root infection/colonisation. This work is ongoing.

Chickpea

Weed Control: The post-plant, pre-emergent herbicides isoxaflutole# and simazine# offer excellent weed control when used correctly. Simazine# is less restrictive regarding re-cropping intervals for other likely rotation crops. While unregistered, tank-mixes of the two products have proven useful as post-emergent applications in some experiments. Other herbicides registered for in-crop use in chickpeas offer relatively low efficacy and unacceptable risk of phytotoxicity in the northern cropping region.

Plant Population and Row Spacing: Under dry land conditions, growers should establish at least 25 plants/m2. While row spacing is not as important as population, there are slight advantages in terms of increased height and compatibility with zero till farming systems. There are no yield penalties associated with row spacing out to one metre under typical rain-fed conditions. These relationships are currently being examined under high yielding irrigated conditions.

Disease Management: Cultural control measures will be the only good option available to growers facing problems with rhizoctonia in chickpeas. Fungicides are not able to adequately address persistent infections caused by high levels of inoculum. The self-imposed seed quarantine regime existing in CQ has successfully kept ascochtya blight out of the region.

Varieties: Rain-fed chickpea production in CQ will be significantly enhanced through the release of cv. Moti®, which consistently outperforms all other varieties and broadens the sowing window.

Crop Desiccation: A very useful tool where warranted, i.e. where wet weather near maturity keeps the crop/weeds growing, delaying harvest. There may be some utility for the practice in southern Qld and northern NSW, where the growing season is longer and crops typically mature slowly. Under these conditions timely desiccation may even out maturity and lead to easier and/or earlier harvest. However, several experiments have failed to demonstrate any advantage at all in typical CQ conditions. A detailed pod maturation study revealed that crops desiccate extremely rapidly of their own accord under the harsh conditions inherent to spring in CQ. This was confirmed through two large scale replicated on-farm experiments. Further work in this area will be reported through project DAQ00061.

Insect Control: Dryland chickpeas crops in CQ contend with high heliothis pressure under conditions of very limited water supply. The potential for compensatory growth and pod production is also very limited. For this reason heliothis thresholds for chickpeas in marginal environments need to be re-evaluated. Moderate pressure by CQ standards can seriously impact on profitability if control is inadequate. The new wave of biological insecticides are often not capable of dealing with high populations rapidly enough to avoid substantial crop damage.

Moisture Seeking: The practice of sowing chickpeas into 'deep' soil moisture has been actively promoted through this project. Adoption has been very rapid and has reached the point where growers and machinery manufacturers now consider moisture seeking when building or buying implements. R&D conducted revealed that tyne choice, ground speed, and row spacing are important parameters. Seed quality studies indicate that high vigour seed lines offer high yield potential when sown deep. Growers should plan to use moisture seeking technology strategically to ensure that crops are sown at the optimal time, without needing to wait for rainfall to create a sowing opportunity. This greatly increases the frequency of chickpea cropping in Qld, with significant flow on benefits for farming enterprises and communities. For example, modelling studies indicate that adoption of moisture seeking chickpeas will increase the frequency of winter cropping at Capella from 45% to over 80% of all years.

Field Pea:

Varieties: Although chickpeas are better suited to winter dryland production in southern Qld, if growers wish to plant field peas, the recommendation would be to select varieties that have been extensively tested in Qld environments. Therefore the best locally adapted varieties would include YarrumPlant Breeders Rights and Boreen.

Faba Bean:

Varieties: Although chickpeas are better suited to winter dryland production in southern Qld, if growers wish to plant faba beans, the recommendation would be to select a variety such as Cairo that has been tested under local conditions.

Project Outcomes

Economic Outcomes

This project has contributed significantly to the expansion of pulse area and production in Qld. Mungbean production increased steadily to reach 35,000 tonnes in 2000 and 2001. Mungbean production has been greatly reduced due to severe drought in 2002 and 2003. Chickpea production has expanded to the point that Qld has grown up to half of the total Australian crop in 2002 and 2003. In 1999 production was 45,000t, farm gate value approx. $18 million. In 2003 production (Pulse Australia forecast) is 95,000t, valued at $38 million farm gate. There is potential for the area sown to chickpeas in Qld to increase to approx. 200,000ha, or 200,000t.

Environmental Outcomes

Increased area under pulses and an increased frequency of pulse cropping will both serve to improve the sustainability of Qld's grain farming systems, through providing more options for opportunity cropping, and reducing the rate of decline in soil nitrogen (Ν) fertility.

Social Outcomes

Significantly, the massive increase in chickpea production in Qld has occurred during a period of severe drought. The emergence of chickpeas as a reliable and profitable drought tolerant crop is likely to have been extremely important to growers and rural communities, who have been existing on otherwise vastly reduced income during this time. The future benefits of more cropping options available to growers will contribute to healthy farming enterprises and rural communities. The increasing value of the Qld chickpeas industry has recently seen mid-large cap companies such as AWB Ltd and Queensland Cotton Limited invest in chickpeas Plant Breeder's Right (PBR) and processing and exporting infrastructure in regional Qld.

Achievement/Benefits

The science-based approach to progressing problematic issues has been very successful, as evidenced by the rapid increase in area sown to chickpea in Qld - chickpea production in Qld doubled during the life of DAQ500 despite severe drought. The current pulse project team aimed to maintain the momentum through strong industry presence and a continuous flow of relevant information to growers and agronomists. This will continue to occur through rural media, field days, GRDC Updates, technical notes on Queensland's Department of Primary Industries (QDPI) and GRDC websites, and most importantly through the QDPI's Accredited Agronomist training courses.

While the regional testing program has been impacted upon by drought, the ability to fall back on DPI Research Stations has ensured that the flow of locally derived data to plant improvement projects has been maintained. The number of specific regional variety trials completed during DAQ500 were:

Southern Qld:
Field Pea - three sites
Faba Bean - seven sites
Mungbean - four sites
Chickpea - seven sites

Central Qld:
Mungbean - seven sites
Chickpea - seven sites (RV testing role assumed by DAQ533 from 2002 on)

The chickpea Moti, the mungbean variety WhiteGold, the faba bean variety Cairo and four field pea varieties have all been released on data from DAQ500.

In addition to trials conducted for the sole purpose of variety/advanced line testing, concurrent agronomic R&D experiments have also provided a great deal of complementary information on variety performance.

Risk Assessment

Ongoing severe drought may impact negatively upon continued expansion of the area sown to pulse crops. Ascochyta blight represents a risk to chickpea production in southern Qld, via eroding grower confidence.

Other Research

While several of the key agronomic constraints to pulse production in QLD have been adequately addressed by DAQ500, several important issues remain identified but unanswered. The 2003-06 phase of GRDC-funded pulse R,D&E in Qld (DAQ00061) aims to address many of these:

Optimal performance in irrigated cropping systems. DAQ500 has been highly successful at defining Best Management Practices (BMP) for dryland farming systems of QLD. However, pulses are increasingly being recognised as real options for irrigated growers. Irrigated systems in the north impose different constraints and opportunities, which have not been dealt with to date.

Moisture-seeking in chickpea: DAQ500 has been instrumental in fostering the rapid adoption of moisture-seeking/deep sowing practices in the northern region, largely through extension activities highlighting success. However, significant knowledge gaps exist, which need to be addressed before chickpeas can realise the full potential made possible by the practice. These include interactions with herbicides, effect of seed quality (size and age), and assessment of any genetic variation, which may exist.

Rhizobium delivery in the northern region: Agronomists and growers in the north continue to be confused about the erratic nature of nodulation success in mungbeans and chickpeas. Preliminary studies have produced worrying results: A pilot study in 2002 did not find the commercial rhizobium strain occupying nodules from any chickpeas crop sampled in CQ (five crops sampled). An experiment conducted in mungbeans found that the method of inoculum delivery most commonly employed by growers produced no greater levels of nodule occupancy by the commercial strain than did treatments without inoculation. This situation needs to be clarified and effective means of delivery developed.

Chickpeas in sodic soils: Performance of chickpeas on much of the northern region's soils is constrained by sodicity. This imposition usually occurs at moderate depth within the profile, such that crops will establish and grow, without achieving satisfactory yields in average or below average seasons. Innovative growers and agronomists are trying to develop solutions to this problem and these activities need to be supported/complemented with practical and focused science.

Sustainability concerns: Growers have recognised the potential for chickpea production and profit in QLD and the area under chickpeas is growing rapidly. However, concerns are being expressed about the long-term net impact on ground cover (and therefore runoff and soil movement) of a greater level of chickpea cropping, as chickpeas leave relatively small amounts of non-persistent crop residue.

Insect management: There is a serious need for research into heliothis thresholds for chickpeas. This work must take into account the different crop situations and the implications for heliothis management, i.e. dryland (long season and short season, such as CQ) and irrigated situations. Further, this also needs to be performed in conditions of high pressure during both vegetative and reproductive crop stages, evaluating the genuine role for biological insecticides.

Published Date 29 May 2018
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