Chickpea management and agronomy

Author: | Date: 17 Jul 2012

Matt Witney,

Dodgshun Medlin Ag Management

Keywords: chickpeas, harvesting, pulse agronomy, break crops, legume

Take home messages: 

  • Chickpea agronomy and management can be very successful if careful planning is done to tick the key operational and agronomy boxes.
  • Chickpeas provide an excellent break crop and gross margin opportunity for growers, and many are now realizing the importance of break crops in a farming system with the current expense of nitrogen.
  • Operationally chickpeas fit very well into many farming systems, often being able to be sown before cereals and generally harvested after.
  • Early sowing, good inoculation and choosing a desirable soil type are key factors in growing and producing quality chickpeas.
  • Harvesting can be challenging but as a rule you are better to under thresh than over thresh.
  • When storing longer term, be sure to look for mould at the top of the storage before shifting grain.

Introduction:

The past two years in the mallee has seen a dramatic increase in chickpeas within the area, especially 2012 plantings, with an estimated increase of 300%.  Given that the last two seasons have been kind to pulse production and with chickpeas returning one of the highest gross margin outcomes, a lot of interest and increased planting has occurred.

Before chickpeas are planted, there are a few management considerations to consider, and some fundamental key areas to get right:

Soil type:

Choose a well-drained sandy clay loam/ clay loam soil type that is suitable for chickpeas.   Paddocks ideally should not be high in sub soil constraints close to the surface (salt/boron).  Chickpeas have better tolerance to boron than lentils but not as tolerant as faba beans.  Ideally chickpeas should not be sown on deep sands or soils that have no clay closer to the surface as they do not respond or grow well in these soil types.

Herbicide residue:

Check herbicide history in paddocks for any chemical that may cause any detrimental effect to chickpeas.  Herbicides such as group B’s (Logran®, Glean®, Hussar® and Ally®) typically pose the greatest threat if they are persistent in the soil when chickpeas are planted.  Typical symptoms are stunting and yellowing of the plants if affected.

Other herbicides to be wary of are LontrelTM, AmineTM (used over summer) and dicamba (used prior to cropping).  These herbicides (group I’s) can cause twisting and growth distortions of plants.

Figure 1. The effect of Group B herbicides on a chickpea crop the following year.

Figure 1. The effect of Group B herbicides on a chickpea crop the following year.

Paddock Topography:

The flatter the paddock and fewer objects such as stone or stumps the better.   Paddocks with crab holes often pose harvesting challenges and sub soil constraints on the banks.  Rolling paddocks is advisable for achieving the best surface at harvest time.

Figure 2. Rolled chickpeas at the 4-5 node stage

Figure 2. Rolled chickpeas at the 4 - 5 node stage.

Spacings:

Chickpeas are one of the most responsive pulse crops to wide spacings with some grown on 24” and up to 1m in northern NSW.  However, the high majority of the mallee crops are grown on 12” spacings due to ease of existing machinery settings.  Also, sowing on wide spacings can be fraught with danger if you do not cover trifluralin well, as hog weed can invade pulse crops and make harvest very difficult.

Figrue 3. Chickpeas grown on 24 inch spacings

Figure 3. Chickpeas grown on 24” spacing’s.

Fertilizer:

Chickpeas are a unique pulse as they secrete acid from their root system which unlocks tied up phosphorus from soils, allowing cereals access.

Given this, many mallee crops on heavier soils types with good phosphorus history have been grown successfully with no phosphorus applied.

Lighter soils or soil types with low or poor phosphorus history may still warrant or get economical responses to P and sulphur must be considered as well.  Before you consider no fertilizer, make sure your colwell P is > 20 ppm, and KCI sulphur level is >8ppm as a guide.

Sowing depth:

Typically chickpeas have been sown at depths anywhere from 2.5 - 8 cm.  Chickpeas will come up from great depths if required and this can be a handy tool when chasing moisture or trying to avoid pests such as mice. Often they are sown down the fertilizer boot at seeding.

Inoculant:

This is not negotiable with chickpeas and you must inoculate well with a group N inoculant either as a slurry sown in moist soil or as a dry inoculant sown dry.  Many who have switched to dry sowing have started using dry inoculants with great success, such as the N-prove® by Novozymes or Becker Underwood’s dry inoculant.   The dry inoculant will cost $10 ha-1 approx. (depending on spacings) more than a slurry, but offers an operational advantage.

Weed pressure:

Although there are good pre-emergent options with Balance® and Terbyne®, it’s advisable to choose lower pressure broadleaf weed burden paddocks.  As the only post emergent option is BroadstrikeTM with no adjuvant, there are limitations post emergent of what weeds you can control well.

BroadstrikeTM does not often work well in chickpeas due to the timing (4-6 branch) of the herbicide on the crop.  At this stage, the weather is often cold which does not suit BroadstrikeTM.  Coldness combined with no adjuvant, means BroadstrikeTM can struggle to give effective weed control.

Always look to get the best up front weed control with pre emergence.

Grass weeds:

Resistant grass weeds, especially rye grass, can pose a threat in chickpea crops due to the uncompetitive nature of legumes in general.  Knowing your resistant status is vital and generally crop topping chickpeas to catch rye grass seed set is not a viable option due to the chickpeas maturing too late.

If you have rye grass resistant to trifluralin or even Select®, make sure the best possible pre-emergent herbicide is used.  If trifluralin is not working well, Avadex® and soon to be released Outlook® are good options to control trifluralin resistant rye grass before chickpeas.   Be careful to still add trifluralin for hog weed control.

Fungicides:

This comes down to variety sown, weather conditions, canopy density and geographic location.  All these considerations help make a decision on “risk” of disease in your pulse crop.   Genesis 090’s are commonly grown in the mallee currently and are foliage resistant to aschocyta which makes that variety very low maintenance to grow.  In other areas where varieties that are not as resistant to aschocyta are grown, a fungicide strategy is needed to avoid yield loss from the disease.

It is advised to research your variety and disease risk and apply the necessary fungicides in strategic applications if required.

Many of the fungicides (i.e. Chlorothalonil) can be mixed with grass herbicides, and can get a free ride on paddocks if the timing suits.

A crucial time to protect plants is at early podding, and often a fungicide and heliothis spray application can coincide.

Insects and grubs:

Chickpeas are acidic and generally have little to no insect issues during the growing season.  The only insect pest that usually warrants action is heliothis at early podding.  As chickpeas go to the human consumption market, which has zero tolerance to the presence of grubs, any grubs found should warrant a spray.

Commonly used synthetic pyrethoid (SP) insecticides such as ALPHA-CYPERMETHRIN are registered in chickpeas.

Crop topping/desiccation:

Chickpeas often mature unevenly and require herbicides to ripen more evenly. Powermax  + Ally® and  Reglone® are registered for desiccation.  Paraquat is registered for crop topping but you will generally miss the boat with grass seed set as chickpeas mature quite late.

In addition, desiccation assists production by; taking out late weeds such as thistles which can stain the seed, allowing for earlier harvesting which lessens the weather risk at harvest and browning out green stems which can gum up knives in headers.

After desiccation, plants become more brittle, so it’s advised not to delay harvesting.

The correct timing for desiccation is when 80-85% of the seeds in the pod have turned yellow and are firm and the remaining 15-20% have yellow “beaks” on the seed or are starting to turn colour. 

A high water rate is advised to get coverage if using a contact herbicide.

Harvesting:

When chickpeas are <14% moisture, they can be harvested.

During harvest, chickpeas can produce a dust which is quite flammable, so make sure headers are blown down frequently to avoid a fire risk.

Common draper fronts are used successfully when stripping chickpeas providing chickpea height is not an issue.  Flex fronts are also used and are an advantage if the chickpeas are lower to ground.  Flex fronts are hinged in short sections, allowing  the front to flex and follow the ground well.  They use skid plates and can be an advantage in dry years when plants and pods are lower to the ground.  Air reels can be an advantage in assisting chickpeas into the front, especially in tin front headers.

Plastic extension fingers can assist by catching pods that fall off the knife, and stopping pods from hitting the ground.  The impact from the front and knife can often cause a vibration and plants can drop pods before they enter the front.  Plastic extension fingers are easily adapted to most knife guards/fronts.

Harvesting in humid conditions is generally an advantage as there is less pod shatter.  Pod shatter can cause quite severe yield penalties, especially in lower yielding crops and when conditions are hot and dry. Some pod/grain loss will always occur and the aim is to minimise it as much as possible. 

The earlier harvest begins the better in most cases, as you will tend to lose less pods to shattering.  Consequently, harvesting on time should be a priority in such a high valued crop.

Take time to get the sample right as you do not want to crack the chickpeas or leave excessive pods in the sample.  Finding a happy medium will depend on tweaking the settings to give  a good/saleable sample.

Generally pulses are easy to thresh, so concave clearances are opened and drum speeds are reduced.

Some basic harvester settings for chickpeas:

  • Reel speed should match ground speed in most cases
  • Spiral clearance – High
  • Thresher speed – 400 – 600 rpm
  • Concave clearance – 10 – 30 mm
  • Fan speed -  High
  • Bottom sieve – 16 mm
  • Top sieve – 32 mm
  • Rotor speed if applicable -  700 – 900 mm

Figure 4. Harvesting chickpeas

Figure 4.  Harvesting chickpeas

Grain storage:

Generally, chickpeas can be stored well on a short term basis and do not attract storage insects like cereals.  The only thing to be mindful of is; what insects are present in the storage area when you unload the chickpeas, and are there traces of cereal in the chickpeas or in the storage area.  If you do find you have pests, phosphine is the only registered way of controlling them.

It’s advised to store chickpeas in insect free storage and to make sure there is not cereal contamination in the silo or sample.

When retrieving chickpeas from storage after a period of time, inspect the sample (especially the top of the storage area), to make sure no moisture or mould is present due to chickpeas sweating.  The top of the storage area can be a trap for moisture/mould and can contaminate the whole storage area when out loading.

Contact details

Matt Witney

Dodgshun Medlin Ag Management

348 Campbell St, Swan Hill

matthew.witney@dodgshunmedlin.com.au

0428 329 919