THE IN-CROP management capabilities of Australia’s chickpea growers and their advisors looks set to be put to the test this season, their first without guidance from Pulse Australia.
Formed in 1995 to lead the growth and development of the Australian pulse industry, most of Pulse Australia’s functions have been assumed by Grains Australia, the body that very sensibly bundles industry-good functions across wheat, barley, oats, and pulses.
What has been left behind is the agronomic interface for Australia’s pulse growers, provided for many years in the north by Paul McIntosh, in the south by Phil Bowden, and earlier by Alan Meldrum in Western Australia also.
Proactive, experienced, and practical, Mr McIntosh and Mr Bowden are no longer employed on retainers that ensure conversations are had about topics including seed for planting, fungicide for spraying, and grades for receival at harvest.
Their remit also put them in touch with market-access issues like weed-seed tolerances, and this interface particularly is one reason that Grains Australia’s Pulse Council may soon be leaning on the Grains Research and Development Corporation to ensure pulse agronomy does not languish.
Mentoring for agronomists needed
Dalby-based Meteora Agronomic Consulting agronomist Liz Lobsey said while many private agronomists are skilled advisors on pulses within their regions, Mr McIntosh’s experience over time and multiple regions makes him unique, and pulse agronomy without him a daunting prospect.
“It’s scary; that is the easiest way to say it,” Ms Lobsey said.
“If I think about who to go to in the pulse space, I couldn’t tell you who I’d talk to other than Paul.”
Mr Bowman and Mr McIntosh are no longer paid for their pulse work, but still do what they can to help the industry, as evidenced by Mr McIntosh’s involvement last week in an ad-hoc webinar on the risk of ascochyta blight in chickpeas this season.
“We’ve been aware for months that it was going to be a huge chickpea year; we already know fungicides are going to be tight,” Ms Lobsey said.
“These industry bodies should be in front of issues, not behind them.”
Understandably, Mr McIntosh and Mr Bowman have a large fan base.
“They’re such nice humans, such good people,” one source in the pulse trade said, adding that while the Pulse Council as part of Grains Australia provides a good cross-section of industry beyond the farm gate, its remit does not currently oblige it to engage in agronomic issues.
One industry source said the varying seasons present another problem for pulse agronomy in the current season, only the third in the past 13 or so years to have a significant disease risk in winter.
“We’ve got this whole new wave of consultants coming through who haven’t experienced a season like this one; they need guidance.”
The critics say that has left a flank exposed.
“Pulse Australia tended to get a good line of sight very quickly,” one source said.
“It used to participate in field days, and talk to the bulk handlers, so that if a new variety came along, there was somewhere to deliver it.”
Pulse Australia also issued periodic crop reports that estimated area and production of Australia’s major pulse crops.
These were discontinued in July 2022, prior to the transfer of Pulse Australia functions to Grains Australia in the second half of 2023.
However, Grains Australia continues to issue Pulse Guidance Notes about the global market with regard to Australia’s major pulse crops, now on a quarterly rather than biannual basis, as well as Australian Bureau of Statistics’ pulse export data.
Concerns for the future
What the future of development, uptake and segregation of varieties looks like is unknown, particularly in Qld and northern NSW, where grower groups commonplace across southern Australia do not exist.
“Varieties won’t get off the ground if no-one will take them.”
Another trade source said the “voice, eyes and ears” that link the offshore consumer and the grower have been lost with the demise of Pulse Australia, a travesty for Australia as generally the world’s biggest exporter of faba beans and desi chickpeas, and the second-biggest lentil exporter behind Canada.
“There is absolutely no connection… back to the breeding program anywhere.”
“What’s important is grain quality, integrity, provenance; that’s where the industry’s going.
“I’m not sure we’re going there.”
The Pulse Australia website it still operational and contains relevant information for growers, advisors, and traders, but its contact link leads to the Grains Australia website.
“The Pulse Australia website is still useful, but extension is the big killer for us as an industry,” Mr McIntosh said.
“On faba beans and chickpeas, getting cooperation on extension has been a bit of a challenge.”
“It’s fragmented and under-resourced and there are not eyes on the future.”
Both Mr Bowden and Mr McIntosh were practised at responding quickly to grower and advisor demands for fungicides, essential to ensure a profitable yield and high quality in wet growing seasons.
“If we have another year like 2016, I worry about emergency-use permits,” Mr McIntosh said.
While Grain Producers Australia will now be applying to the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority for such permits on behalf of the pulse industry, who applies to GPA on behalf of pulse growers remains to be seen.
“Dealing with wheat, barley and canola is a lot different to pulses, because they weren’t put on the labels originally,” Mr Bowden said.
“That’s why we have to do emergency and minor-use permits.
“There are certainly gaps in extension, things that we performed that no-one’s too sure about.”
Grains Australia is an initiative of GRDC, which uses grower levies and Federal Government funding to invest in research, development and extension “to create enduring profitability” for Australian grain growers.
GRDC’s move to deliver agronomy through its three regions – northern for Qld and NSW; western for WA, and southern for the other states – went against Pulse Australia’s looser national model.
Concerns about tolerances for weed seeds, recently Italian ryegrass, have been noted as a reason to have a strong industry connection from grower to market.
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