Growers may be tempted to go into their crop stubble in northern NSW with a mungbean crop but there are many dos and dont's before considering the move.
The temptation though is there with perfect growing scenario and mungbeans attracting in recent months about $1100 to $1400 a tonne for clean seed.
Australia produces about 100,000 hectares of mungbeans a year, but this could easily grow to 200,000 hectares, as, what has been mainly a Queensland crop, makes inroads into northern NSW.
With the planting window opening in many northern areas in December-January, the 80 day crop is a temptation for growers with its quick turnaround time.
Pulse Australia's Paul McIntosh has given some sage advice to The Land readers on how to approach the often finnicky crop. He says recent rain has given the ideal time to plant right up until the end of January.
"The first priority is to assess your level of stored soil moisture in the profile," he says. "A key part of many success stories is having that 100mm or preferably more of stored PAW prior to planting . This is a minimum amount in my book. Plant into your fairly full moisture profile , about four weeks before the next 50 mm of in-crop rain.
"Mungbeans can be grown reasonably okay in dryland situations and have done so in Queensland regional areas for many years, however these significant follow up in-crop rainfall events, certainly make this 70 to 85 day duration crop, yield higher and therefore more profitable.
"Certainly any irrigation either overhead or flood is of great benefit to the crop. It is a short duration crop being driven by day degrees or thermal time accumulation of around 1200 Cd to reach physiological maturity from planting time.
"With the current enviable amount of winter cereal stubble around in NSW , the lure of planting a mungbean crop into these stubble loads is very enticing . Of course applied winter herbicides in your 2020 crop can leave residuals on those treated areas and products like Metsulfuron , Picloram or the Triazine actives plus others, could all unfavourably impact on freshly planted summer mungbean plants.
"Row spacing has been narrowing up in our traditional mungbean paddocks over the last decade , in response to the modern varieties extra plant height and also making much better use of the inter row moisture levels. So the traditional one metre row spacing is now decreasing down to 30 to 50 cms width more and more these days as machinery allows.
"Of course as soon as you mention legume planting, many folks get this pained twisted look on their faces with the thought of having to inoculate the seed.
"It is true that inoculation is still an extremely important task to do correctly when intending to grow mungs. They are so quick through their growth stages hat you need everything spot on in advance and that definitely includes inoculation to provide that 70 kgs per ha of N per tonne of mung seed harvested. So therefore to grow a 2 tonne per ha crop, the plants needs to produce and forage for 140 kgs of N.
"My best advice is too always inoculate your mungbean seed immediately in front of the planting operation - at the 20 to 30 kgs per ha planting rate. Nutrition is best served with normal basic starter fertiliser pattern of phosphorous and zinc, placed five cms below and too one side of the plant line. They do like a balanced soil nutrition, so elements like potassium and sulfur are also highly desirable in our mungs paddocks.
"Insect control starts with weekly scouting at vegetative times and then switch into twice weekly beat sheet checks for the usual crowd of helicoverpa, mirids, podborers and bean bugs.
"Of course these days Fall Armyworm or FAW gets plenty of mention , however the type of FAW we have in Australia certainly don't favour eating our Mungbeans at this stage is the advice from agronomists in the North Queensland hard hit areas.
"So that is some of the major considerations of growing a Mungbean crop and with the world price being strong , combined with the clean green image of the desirable Aussie Mungbeans exported , those folk with good soil moisture , plus other solid agronomic parameters could consider planting them in their current cropping system.
"I am always available to talk about Pulse cropping and mungs in particular. I and the President of the Australian Mungbean Assc will be travelling through the NSW growing region in the week of the 18th of January, attending incrop field days, so please feel to contact us."
John Ellicott
journalist and author
journalist and author
