Chickpea plant to pass 800,000 ha; get ready for the agronomic challenges

Pulse Australia's Northern Region agronomist and industry development manager Paul McIntosh welcomes the interest shown in the crop but raised the topic of agronomical preparedness during Thursday's sessions of the annual Crop Consultants Australia seminar at Tamworth.

Mr McIntosh said 2016's wet year and the planting of 1.3 million hectares of Desi chickpeas still haunt him when he recalls the problems with fungicide shortages and damage by Ascochyta blight and Botrytis cinerea or botrytis grey mould (BGM).

"That's the big thing about chickpeas is guarding them against those fungal issues that happen, and of course, we're talking about Ascochyta, and of course of BGM in that warmer springtime," he said.

"There's some (chickpeas) gone in without seed dressing or fungicide dressing on the seat, which concerns me; everyone needs to be on their toes about that.

He said growers needed to be focused on disease issues.

"As soon as the crop comes out of the ground, they need to be making sure they get a fungicide prevention application before a disease is too bad in their crops.

Mr McIntosh believes there are "a whole heap of issues around the forecast of 800,000 hectares of chickpeas.

"I suspect the planting area could go higher than that because, you know, with the 68 pc tariff that India has removed until March of 2025, it has really encouraged everybody to plant more chickpeas."

"Now, I'm good old pulse man, and I would love to see a few more pulse crops as a rotation, which is what I've been edging for some years," he said. "However, we still need to be careful about the rotations. We need to be careful about our fungicide applications.

"We need to have our supply of fungicide applications up our sleeve if you're going to plant a lot of chickpeas, and we also need to rotate our fungicide mode of action, which is another critical point.

Mr McIntosh said growers must be vigilant about their crop health checks, diagnosing, testing, and checking suspected outbreaks.

"It's more of a visual thing that you should be able to pick. A lot of the agronomists can pick those sorts of diseases right away.

"And, of course, you got the good Department of Ag in NSW to do that testing down this way for chickpeas.

"But indeed, prevention of all these diseases in our chickpeas. It is not a cure with fungicide. You have got to anticipate these things and maybe apply a fungicide before a shower of rain.

Mr McIntosh said growers should also check the shelf life of chemicals. He and some of his colleagues have encountered fungicides sitting on suppliers' shelves and losing their efficacy due to their age.