Dual benefits of broad beans

THE peat soil on Sam Croser’s farm near Millicent, South Australia, grows excellent crops but is not without its challenges.

Nutrient tie-up, particularly of phosphorus and the trace elements copper, zinc and manganese, had restricted production until Mr Croser implemented a liquid fertiliser program, applying liquid phosphorus at planting along with a small amount of copper, zinc and manganese.

“The liquid phosphorus works well for the broad bean crops although we are experimenting with different products to find the most cost-effective option,” he said.

“In the other broadacre crops we use granular starter fertiliser blends and urea.

“We ran mainly sheep and cattle until about ten years ago when we expanded our farming area and have incorporated more cropping enterprises.

“Broad beans are central to our mixed farming operation, providing soil fertility benefits and fodder for finishing our lambs and yearling cattle.”

The start to this season has been very favourable for dryland cropping of wheat, canola and broad beans.

The early rains germinated a flush of weeds giving the Crosers an opportunity to clean the fields with knockdown herbicide before planting.

Autumn has been mild and there have been no early frosts making preparation for sowing easy and lambing time has been uneventful.

Mr Croser has sown 110ha of Aquadulce broad beans this season, a fairly standard area in the beans–wheat–canola rotation.

“We usually have a few rounds of this cropping rotation before returning the paddocks to lucerne hay and pasture for about six years,” he said.

“Aquadulce is a large broad bean variety grown for the premium human consumption market.

“It performs well on the high organic matter, high pH soil and tolerates the short periods of waterlogging that can occur in this high rainfall area.”

Mr Croser uses the trace elements to improve plant health and resistance to disease.

“It is also important not to sow too early as this leads to a bulky crop that is more prone to foliar disease," he said.

“Staining of the beans would see them downgraded as they are not accepted for human consumption."

Being a niche market, there are no contracts available and so the grain is sold off the header at the price of the day.

Mr Croser maintains good relations with the local marketing firms and uses marketing outlooks to decide on the area sown each year.

“Broad beans have produced the best gross margin on our farm for many years and the cash return along with the soil and fodder benefits mean that the area we sow each year does not really alter very much,” he said.

This rotation also gives the Crosers the option to use Group C pre-emergent chemistry to treat ryegrass and broadleaf weeds.

The dryland crops are grown on one 445ha block, a second similar sized block grows a variety of irrigated crops including vegetable seed crops, potatoes, maize and fodder crops, depending on the opportunities that exist each season.

A third block of 480ha is sandier country and used only for grazing.

“We don’t use any grain to finish the livestock and only store seed for the following season on farm,” said Mr Croser.

“We usually have more fodder crops and stubble than we need for the lambs and calves we breed ourselves and so we also finish trade lambs and young cattle when the prices are right.”

The Crosers ensure their livestock are inoculated against pulpy kidney disease and give the young cattle time to accept the broad bean stubble.

The exceptionally good early start has allowed the Crosers to try more graze and grain crops in their cleaner weed paddocks.

“We sowed winter wheat very early and have had a lot of grazing out of it,” said Mr Croser.

“Something new I've tried this year for first time is winter canola, which has been a huge success so far.

"We are finishing off second grazing and hardest part has been getting enough stock to get on top of it.”