Improvements in Managing Chickpea Growth Habit

Source: Saskatchewan Agriculture and Food

If there is a crop Saskatchewan can do better north of the 49th than just about anyone, it is chickpea.

First grown in Turkey around 7,000 B.C., chickpea was traditionally grown in semi-arid zones of India and Middle Eastern countries. Like all legumes, chickpea can fix nitrogen from the atmosphere. The growth habit is erect, with most of the pods formed in the top part of the plant.

Canada is very much ahead of the United States in terms of expertise in growing chickpea and pulse crops in general, according to Yantai Gan, a Researcher at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s Research Facility in Swift Current.

“There has been a lack of incentive to grow lentils, peas and chickpeas south of the border because of how their farm subsidies work. As a result, we are much more advanced in terms of research and development in growing these crops.”

Chickpea pose two main challenges to Saskatchewan growers, explains Gan.

“They are highly susceptible to an extremely aggressive fungal disease—ascochyta blight—that could virtually wipe out an entire field of susceptible varieties. The other challenge is maturity, which is limited by our short growing season.”

Chickpea has an indeterminate growth habit and often will continue to grow and flower as long as growing conditions remain favourable for vegetative growth.

“It is a long-season crop,” explains Gan, “which is not a problem during a normal year but can lead to maturity challenges in wet years, when the plant might delay setting pods until it is too late.”

Because of this growth habit, chickpea is best adapted to the Brown and Dark Brown soil zones of Saskatchewan, where late fall stressful conditions (such as drought) will actually help chickpea plants to shut down their growth and be forced to mature.

Chickpea is not well adapted to saline soils, or to high moisture areas of the province. It is not well suited to areas where soils are slow to warm in the spring, and chickpea do not tolerate wet or waterlogged soils.

Gan and his colleagues have been working on inducing the kind of stress in the plant that would encourage seed set and hasten maturity.

“We know that nitrogen stress can be effective. When ready-to-use nitrogen and soil water are available in the early stages of crop development, the plants will develop a more vigorous vegetative growth, which not only allows plants to accumulate larger amounts of biomass, but also helps plants to deplete soil nutrients and water earlier in the season, promoting more timely maturity,” says Gan.

“In an experiment being conducted at Shaunavon and Swift Current, we are comparing the use of nitrogen fertilizer with the use of rhizobial inoculants as a way to bring about maturity or manage it within the parameters of the Saskatchewan growing season. Based on the results from 2004 field trials, the use of nitrogen fertilizer at the rates of 28 to 56 pounds of nitrogen per acre promoted chickpea maturity by as much as 14 to 21 days, compared to the plots that did not receive nitrogen fertilizer.”

Gan dreams of the day when chickpea production in Saskatchewan will be a little more worry-free. Certainly, growers here have a head start on the rest of North America.

For more information, contact:

Yantai Gan , PhD
Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada
(306) 778-7246