My brother and I farm about 4000 acres together in the Kindersley area. About 95% of this would be seeded in a year. We have been direct seeding for seven years now and have settled into a four-year crop rotation. Our rotation is cereal-pulse-cereal-oilseed. Canary seed because of the differences in diseases from traditional cereals and its high nitrogen requirement will fill some of our oilseed acres.
The soils on our farm tend to range from some lighter clay loam to heavy clay. This variability in soil type can make finding openers for our Flexi-Coil 5000 air drill quite difficult. What works well in the clay loam is definitely not guaranteed to do an adequate job in the heavy clay. The openers that we have found to do a fair job in all our land is the one-inch gumbo knife on the Flexi-Coil Stealth boot. These openers were mounted on 12-inch spacings. We have changed to 9 inch spacing for next year.
For the first few years of direct seeding, the pulses in our rotation included Laird lentils and peas. In 1995 we decided to include some chickpeas in our plans. Here is a quick summary of our results since:
1995: We seeded Marengo brown desi chickpeas on 60 acres. When the chickpeas emerged, we had to look very closely at our field, as we weren't aware that the colour of the chickpea seedlings is very close to that of flixweed. One other lesson learned that year was that hail can severely hurt chickpeas.
1996: We seeded 60 acres of UC27 kabuli chickpeas. This was our first exposure to granular inoculant. At that time, the recommendation was to sprinkle it over the fertilizer as you augured it into the air seeder. This method did not seem to work. This was also the year that we discovered how quickly ascochyta can destroy a crop, especially a non-resistant variety. Actually, we had kept ahead of the disease with the first two sprayings of Bravo, but had a tractor breakdown on the way out to the third application. That night we had the last rain of the summer and we weren't able to spray before it was too late.
1997: We seeded 120 acres of Sanford kabuli chickpeas. This was a successful year with fairly good yield and top quality. A few lessons from the previous year that helped were that we did not cut the seeding rate. A thin crop is more likely to mature uneven and later. This is even more important with a long season crop like kabuli chickpeas. Also, use a disease resistant variety if available. If we had grown UC27's on this year, there would have been at least one Bravo application needed.
1998: We put in 240 acres of Myles desi chickpeas. This was the year we discovered that chickpeas were really drought tolerant. The land they were grown on received from 3 to 4.5 inches of rain all season. We were happy to have a crop that still had pods three inches off the ground and a yield of over twenty bushels.
1999: We seeded 240 acres of Myles brown desi chickpeas. Cold weather and an abundance of rain do not make for a high quality crop. Frost, along with these conditions, will lower quality even more as well as wipe out the yield.
From our experiences of growing both desi and kabuli chickpeas for the last five years, we have made the following adjustments to our cropping practices:
Pre-seeding: Since chickpeas are poor competitors, a good burn-off is crucial. A pre-emergent such as fall-applied Edge is a good idea to help control wild buckwheat and wild oats.
Seeding: I have become comfortable applying my peat-based inoculant in a slurry. Last year I added Jumpstart to the slurry to try to provide some extra phosphate. Use the right seeding rate to get the recommended plants per square foot for the variety grown. This will require obtaining the 1000 seed weight. We try to get a seeding depth f approximately 2 to 1.5 inches. Ensure there is adequate moisture around the seed for germination. Land rolling is usually done right after crop emergence.
Fertility: Although the most recent advice is not to apply any fertilizer for pulse crops, we usually feel the need to either fall band some phosphate or apply Jumpstart on the seed. Our soils are very high pH (8.0 - 8.7) so available phosphate levels are usually very low.
Weed control: We try to apply 75-90 gram rate of Sencor when the chickpeas are one to two inches tall. We feel this helps to get the stinkweeds before they're too big and is also easier on the crop. Post-emergent grass sprays are spot sprayed to get any misses from the Edge. If you see signs of the disease, don't hesitate to get help with identification. Disease can wipe out profits very quickly.
Harvest: This crop tends to look ripe long before the seeds are actually ripe. Frost while the pods are still green can abort or else fix green in the seeds. Damp air will make harvesting difficult, as the pods will toughen up very quickly. If there is any moisture in the air or even a light dew, your harvesting day may only run from 11:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Chickpeas stand up better than any other pulse crop we have grown, which increases harvest speeds and lowers stress greatly.
In conclusion, even with the total disasters we have had, we still think that chickpeas are profitable in our soil zone. As improved varieties are introduced which are earlier maturing and more disease resistant, this crop will become less risky. The drought tolerance and nitrogen fixation make chickpeas very attractive for our rotation and climate.