The rapid rise and crash of chickpea popularity in the late 1990s left a bad taste in the mouths of many growers. Now, once again, strong international prices in the range of 38 to 40 cents a pound for large kabulis have rekindled interest in the crop.
“Even with the new varieties and better management, kabuli chickpeas is a high risk crop,” said Ray McVicar at Saskatchewan Agriculture.
“When prices are so very high like they are now, this crop has the potential for a very good financial return.”
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He said a realistic yield is 1,200 lb. of clean seed per acre. If the price is 40 cents a lb., quick math puts $480 an acre on the table.
“However, investment in time and money is very high,” said McVicar.
“Input costs can easily total $200 per acre once you add in the fungicides. And those fungicides are essential. Without them, there is a very real risk of losing a whole field to disease.”
Ascochyta doesn’t cause just a partial loss as may happen with lentils. In a field of kabuli chickpeas, the loss can be 100 percent.
“On top of that, crop insurance will deny a claim if all the recommendations haven’t been followed,” McVicar said. “So if you’re putting $200 per acre on the line, you’d better be ready to adhere to the guidelines and spend enough time to protect your crop.
“We’ve all learned so much about how to handle the crop since the last high price cycle and we have four new registered fungicides for kabuli, but you still have to be in the right growing area and you still have to do all the right things.”
Garth Patterson of Saskatchewan Pulse Growers agreed.
“We have gained valuable knowledge and developed new technology since the rise and fall of the Saskatchewan chickpea empire five years ago.”
However, Patterson said one thing remains unchanged – there is no room for corner cutting if a grower realistically expects to make money with chickpeas.
With the current price peak, there will be new chickpea growers in 2006.
Patterson and McVicar urge novice growers to contact researchers, extension personnel, commercial growers, seed growers and processors for tips on best management practices.
“Chickpeas are a niche crop subject to large price swings. It is important to know your costs and monitor the markets in order to determine when to sell,” Patterson added.
They said producers should study the following tips before venturing into chickpeas.
Producers are in a far better situation in 2006 than they were in the late 1990s when they experienced the last major expansion. Their ability to manage the disease has improved.
“Ascochyta is with us always. That will never change,” McVicar said.
“The key is to monitor your fields regularly to keep on top of it. Once it’s out control, it’s gone.”
Good management is the answer.
“That’s why the fungicide application is extremely time sensitive.”
Patterson added that ascochyta is aggressive, especially in wet conditions. While fungicides are essential, there is no single method of control. Farmers need a plan.
“Growers need to adopt an integrated management strategy utilizing resistant varieties, crop rotation, nutrition management, crop protection products and monitoring to manage this disease.”
The ascochyta problem is compounded by the fact that most kabuli chickpea varieties adapted to Saskatchewan have poor or very poor resistance to the disease. The variety selection program selects for seed size and seed quality.
There are only two varieties considered to have fair resistance. They are Amit (B-90) and CDC Frontier.
McVicar said producers interested in trying kabuli chickpeas should do some homework before contacting a seed source.
He said the necessary agronomic information can be found in the 2006 Varieties of Grain Crops Bulletin, produced by Saskatchewan Agriculture.
Years of research and practical experience have shown that inoculants are effective in producing top yielding peas, lentils and chickpeas. However, new research by Yantai Gan at Agriculture Canada in Swift Current suggests that nitrogen fertilizer may have a fit in chickpea production.
Location is everything.
“Only try the crop if you’re in southwestern Saskatchewan or southeastern Alberta, and only in the brown soil zone where there tends to be less rainfall in July and August,” said McVicar.
“You can try it in other areas if you’re really into high investment, high risk and zero return. Otherwise, a person should stick to the recommended zones.”
Research has also shown that field selection and nutrient status of that field will also affect chickpea growth, maturity and crop health.
“To reduce the risk of ascochyta, chickpeas should not be grown on the same field more than one in four years,” he said.
Herbicide residue can also have a major negative impact on pea seedlings. He said the department’s chickpea website has detailed information on herbicide residue.
While herbicide residues left over from previous weed control programs present one side of this problem, the leftover weeds also pose a threat.
Chickpeas, like other pulse crops, are poor competitors with weeds. Chickpeas should only be seeded on clean fields that have had an effective weed control program in previous years.
Patterson reminds growers to use only registered crop protection products on the chickpea crop.
Patterson said chickpeas require intensive management and field scouting so growers should not plan for many days at the lake in July during ascochyta season.
McVicar agreed it is a touchy crop to grow.
“If we get wet conditions, you should check your fields every two or three days. It’s so tricky because you really want to apply your fungicide before it rains for the best result.
“If you’ve gone for 10 days without rain and there’s a forecast calling for change or unsettled weather in the next couple of days, that’s the time to put fungicide on chickpeas.”
One of the problems in the 1990s was a large volume of poor quality seed, said McVicar.
“The chickpea seed itself is a major source of ascochyta. So by not paying attention to seed quality, farmers were spreading ascochyta all over the place by dealing in bad seed. The disease is also soil-borne, so the bad seed spread ascochyta to a lot of new territory.”
McVicar said poor quality seed is slow to germinate and grow. Although chickpeas have a long growing season, those slow plants never do catch up to the leading plants. The result is a lot of green seeds mixed in with the valuable market-quality product.
“The seed test is an absolute necessity. You need germination, vigour and the ascochyta test. You have no crop insurance without a test to document a tolerable level of seed-borne ascochyta.”
McVicar said a grower also must treat the seed, a process that is usually done by a custom applicator. Again, crop insurance will require documentation of the seed treatment if a claim is filed.
Chickpea seed is large and fragile. Seeding equipment must be properly set to ensure adequate plant populations are established.
“Seed damage by the air system was another huge problem in the 1990s,” said McVicar.
“Those early air delivery systems were capable of doing extreme damage to large seeds like chickpeas. I think the newer air systems are more gentle on the seed, but not everybody has them.
“You want to be as gentle as possible with the seed. For example, use a rubber belt conveyor instead of an auger if at all possible.”
Some pea growers report that their air delivery system leaves unseeded rows a metre long, followed by another similar long strip with too many plants.
This is probably a result of seeds bunching up at a bottleneck in the system, creating the vacant strip. The seed jam then pops when enough air pressure builds to blow it open, creating the high plant count.
The solution is to go over the air system carefully to reduce the points where jams occur.
There is a narrow two-week seeding window in May that’s optimal for chickpeas. Seeding outside the window leads to a crop that may have a lot of high-value peas mixed in with a lot of green seed.
Gentle is one of the key words at harvest, just as it is at seeding time. The other key word is greens.
The objective is to take off a high quality crop with minimal green seeds.
McVicar said any given field may have different growth stages. When that happens, it’s important to keep the different stages segregated. Each stage will have it’s own dollar value. Mixing chickpeas of different quality and value has the result of lowering the overall value.
“In rolling land, the higher areas mature earlier and the low spots remain green longer. That’s always obvious. The thing to keep in mind is that you do not want to mix the different crop stages. You want to keep them separate.
“Combine your high spots first and put those peas in a bin. Then go back later to combine the lower areas and put those peas in different bins. You never want to mix the different stages.”
For maximum economic benefit at the farm level, pea segregation must continue all the way to the buyer. The gentle treatment and close attention to the condition of the product also must continue.
Patterson said it’s a shame to go to all the trouble and expense of producing a good chickpea crop, only to have it go bad in the bin.
He said chickpea seed is large, and will often sweat in the bin after harvest. This is when moisture migrates from the centre to the outside of the seed, and can result in spoilage if bins are not monitored carefully.
McVicar agreed that the babysitting job starts when the seeds arrive on the farm and continues until the crop leaves the farmgate.
“Once the crop is off, it can take a while for the moisture in the bin to stabilize, because these seeds are so large. You’ve got to keep monitoring the bins and be ready to turn on the fans.
Aeration is probably needed most years. Once the peas stabilize, you want 14 percent moisture in the bins.”
The Saskatchewan agriculture department has produced a CD on managing ascochyta in chickpeas. It’s available by calling 866-457-2377.
