We experienced many of the challenges that growers are faced with when growing pulse crops in 2018. Ideally, pulse crops need to be sown early to maximise yield potential. There was not an opportunity to do that at the three demonstration sites last year. Aside from reduced yield, we also encountered heavier weed burdens, due to reduced plant competition and poorer chemical efficacy.
Thankfully, the Frankland trial site experienced a reasonable growing season despite the late start. This enabled us to see the true potential of Faba beans, Field Peas and even Lupins to a lesser degree. We still encountered many of the traditional difficulties with growing legume crops such as:
- Getting rocks in the grain sample
- Getting blocked seeder tubes due to the very large Samira Faba bean seed
- Heavy lodging of Field Peas making them difficult to harvest
- Lack of in-crop herbicide options to control broad-leaf weeds.
- Poor nodulation due to the dry conditions at seeding and immediately after
- Poor yields in comparison to the established break crop ‘canola’.
Despite these difficulties, SCF and SD growers understand the overall importance to increasing crop diversity. This message will be further clarified when we host the Farmanco Crop Sequencing and Modelling work-shops in 2019 and 2020. The high prices achieved by Faba beans in 2019 will generate interest in legume crops despite growers understanding 2018 was a rare year for grain prices.
Results from the 2018 Frankland site indicate that Field Peas and Faba beans require further investigation. Large areas of the Faba beans had exceptional biomass and the Field peas also had consistent biomass over the growing season. Both crops probably lost yield from the late frost events and we know that the header front used was unable to pick up 100% of the Field peas. By addressing most of the issues listed above we hope to improve yields and gross margins to close the gap on canola as break crop. We also need to assess the yield potential of these crops when sown in their preferred seeding window.