LIKE many croppers this year following commodity prices the McRae family is growing some mung beans.
Although Phil and Rachel McRae and daughters are only “dipping their toes in to test the water” with just 19 hectares of Jade variety within this winter and spring growing season totalling some 400ha of their aggregation, the planting is their first attempt at the legume crop.
“It’s our first time at growing mung beans as sorghum prices are not that great,” Mr McRae said.
“So we thought we’d try something different and mung beans are looking towards a fair return.
“It’s not a big patch and they haven’t got their nickname for nothing, so I thought we’d have a go.”
Their daughter Emily sowed the crop in a paddock which grew durum wheat last year on their nearby Breeza property, “Boonah”, at a seed rate of 23 kilograms/ha with 40kg/ha of Granulock Supreme Z Extra starter in 50 centimetre spacings.
“We used 50cm spacings instead of a metre on the suggestion of our agronomist, John Nott of Pursehouse Rural, Gunnedah,” Mr McRae said.
While there was plenty of sub-soil moisture at sowing, an additional 17mm last Sunday night is helping and the McRaes hope for some more in-crop precipitation, preferably after harvest or enough not to ruin their other crops which includes 160ha of durum wheat, 40ha dryland cotton, 70ha sorghum, 60ha chickpeas and 50ha of oats for fodder and stripping.
Harvest is planned to begin with oats, hopefully by the end of this week.
Mung beans in the big league
MUNG BEANS have long past being an opportunity crop and are standing on their own among grain growing options.
They are now growing in fallow country and demanding a premium for the better quality clean green bean, according to Pulse Australia industry development manager, northern region, Paul McIntosh.
“There were 125,000 hectares of mung beans grown last year resulting in some 150,000 to 160,000 tonnes harvested with more than 95 per cent exported for sprouting,” he said.
“This year we are expecting more, but prospective croppers really need to talk to a marketer and then to a technical expert for agronomy details before they put a seed into the ground.”
Mr McIntosh said mung beans were a handy income option to cereals and sorghum this season, however, it was important to have the knowledge of the potential market a grower planned to sell into.
“The return is around the $1000 a tonne for the better quality mung beans produced.
“These are the large shiny green beans that come from jade and crystal, the two preferred varieties grown in Australia, and the lesser quality beans may fetch up to $850/t.”
And while they are a quick growing crop (90 days) mung beans like warm soil and plenty of moisture.
AusWest Seeds north west territory manager Tim Burley, Gravesend, said there were two distinct planting times – spring and summer.
“That’s to avoid the heat over the Christmas period.
“We had a very successful spring plant here in the northwest from a wet August and September.
“September was our highest rainfall, possibly in history, with my property receiving 160 millimetres and setting up ideal conditions for a spring planting.”
Mr Burley said mung bean pricing and contracts available were very favourable.
The popularity of mung beans this 2016-17 summer is such that a record planting is in the offing.
Mr Burley said he couldn’t talk about hectares, but his company’s current volume of seed sales was about 70pc of what it would expect to sell for a full year.
“We are in a predominantly late crop or summer crop area, so most of our plantings go in during February.
“So to be 70pc in to our annual sales after the spring plant indicates quite an upward shift in mung bean production.”
Market analyst Lloyd George, Ag Scientia, Melbourne, threw some caution saying chickpea returns had dropped in price which may influence the mung bean market.
However, Mr Burley said he believed that was just market volatility at harvest more than anything else.
