Chickpea growers needed for survey

THE 2017 chickpea season proved challenging for many growers, with some crops experiencing moisture and heat stress, as well as frost conditions and rain late in the season.

The Grains Research and Development Corporation and NSW Department of Primary Industries are investing in research to investigate the issues experienced by chickpea growers in 2017 and want growers to complete an anonymous survey as part of the project.

Dr Jennifer Wood, Senior Research Scientist (Pulse Quality) at NSW DPI said they are particularly interested in growers’ experiences with chickpea defects or problems in the delivery of chickpeas at receival centres.

“It was a challenging season for chickpea growers last year and we would like to capture their experiences as part of collaborative GRDC projects.

“Downgrades due to grain defects in chickpeas can cost growers significant penalties per tonne, so we are studying what environmental conditions contribute to these defects, and whether certain varieties are more susceptible than others.

“We know some of the crops being delivered at the end of the season were downgraded or even rejected for grain defects and we need to understand the scale of the problems and what impact they have had on grower profitability so that we can target our research on the most important seed defects that have the biggest impact on growers.”

The survey will include questions on variety, area harvested, defects detected and subsequent penalty discounts, with the data collected helping boost the knowledge needed to breed varieties less susceptible to defects.

The survey can be completed here: www.surveymonkey.

com/r/CPdefects.