Commencement date

Februrary 2023

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Completion date

April 2025

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Aim

This project will be designed to highlight the optimum agronomy required to maximise yields of grain legumes across a range of environments and soil types, and to determine which grain legumes have the best economic fit in each sub-region, under grower conditions and situations. Best fit information produced from these projects will be used to guide the larger scale on-farm trials.

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Funding Provider

GRDC

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Project lead organisation​

GGA

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Project background

Grain legumes have been widely grown in Western Australia, with lupins the most dominant species due to their suitability to acidic sandy soils. Although high value pulses may not be suited to all soil types and regions, there are areas of WA (soil type x environment) where they are highly suited. Despite this, the adoption of grain legumes in these areas has been poor and the proportion of pulses in the farming system is suboptimal and in fact declining. There has also been a stagnation of lupin yields. Since the inception of GRDCs Western Regional Cropping Solutions networks (now GRDC Grower Networks), growers have continually highlighted that there are no specifically adapted or consistently profitable break crops/legume options for their farming systems.  Research is ongoing to select for acid and chilling tolerant crop species which will expand the areas where grain legumes can reliably be grown in WA. However even with existing species and cultivars, there are rotational and economic advantages from incorporating grain legumes into the farming system that are not being realised.

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This project will be designed to highlight the optimum agronomy required to maximise yields of grain legumes across a range of environments and soil types, and to determine which grain legumes have the best economic fit in each sub-region, under grower conditions and situations. Best fit information produced from these projects will be used to guide the larger scale on-farm trials.