For the Provision of Building Capacity, Skills and Knowledge for the Pulse Industry in the Southern Region: Supporting E

⁠⁠⁠The Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) is a statutory corporation established under the Primary Industries Research and Development Act 1989. It is subject to accountability and reporting obligations set out in the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013. It is responsible for planning, investing in and overseeing research and development, and delivering improvements in production, sustainability and profitability across the Australian grains industry.

Pulse crops have long been recognised as providing numerous economic and farming system benefits including: biological nitrogen fixation; providing a disease break for some foliar and soil-borne pathogens of cereals and oilseeds; enabling increased diversity in weed management through use of alternate herbicide modes-of-action and implementation of IWM tactics; and providing agronomic and economic diversity in enterprise mix.

Pulse crops have historically formed an important part of cropping rotations in the GRDC Southern Region, with an estimated planted area of 795,057 hectares and production of 1.1 million tonnes last season (Source: Australian Crop Forecasters). Intensive production has been historically concentrated in the medium rainfall zones, with much smaller areas under pulse production in the low and high rainfall zones. Whilst immediate opportunities for expansion in pulse area may be apparent, and are in-fact occurring, the willingness of growers to adopt is often limited due to a range of factors including: perception of risk and complexity in production; concerns over the longer-term sustainability of pricing as Australian production increases; lack of local agronomic knowledge and support; agronomic challenges relating to disease, weed and pest management; seed-cleaning, storage and marketing issues; and required investments in plant and infrastructure. Pulses are considered by many to be complex to manage and poor agronomy subsequently poses a risk to the profitability of inexperienced growers.

Whilst it is anticipated that cereal crops, predominantly wheat, will continue to be the foundation of cropping rotations for most Australian grain growers well into the future, current cereal crop commodity pricing and ever increasing competitiveness in world cereal markets necessitate an increased focus on production opportunities for alternative high value crops including pulses. The estimated potential production for pulse crops in Australia, assuming all constraints are overcome, is 4.2 million tonnes with a commodity value of AU$1.5 billion and a farm system benefit of AU$538 million (Source: Pulse Australia).

Motivation and interest in growing pulses across the Southern Region and, in particular, broader expansion into new areas in the low rainfall zone is presently high. Pulse crops destined for high value human consumption, specifically lentils and chickpeas, provide an immediate opportunity to significantly increase both enterprise diversity and farm profitability. Whilst the systems and rotational benefits associated with growing pulses may be generally well known, the key driver for the extent of pulse expansion into new areas is directly related to commodity pricing.

In general, pulses have a reputation for variable yield and subsequent economic return outside the medium rainfall zone, and high prices help buffer against this variability. The motivation for inexperienced growers to increase plantings of high value pulse crops as an alternative to cereals is constrained by grower and advisor confidence in the reliability of economic return and a lack of knowledge, skills and experience in crop agronomy, production and marketing. There is also a perceived need to refine pulse management techniques and recommendations historically developed from existing production areas (medium-high rainfall) to increase the relevance to other agro-climatic zones, including areas characterised by shorter growing seasons, lower and less reliable rainfall, and reduced disease pressure. Consequently, the present interest in pulses is leading to increased plantings whilst many growers and advisors lack the knowledge, skills and experience, to realise potential economic returns.

In addition to the anticipated increase in plantings of chickpeas and lentils resulting from expansion into new areas, there is a real and recognised need to continue to support existing pulse growers to increase profitability through productivity and grain quality improvements, maximising price attained and optimisation of cost of production. In these areas, ‘fine-tuning’ of existing agronomic practices is required to strive for continual improvement and support the sustainable intensification of production systems through the adoption of research outcomes from existing GRDC R&D activities.

The present shortage of specialised knowledge and skills relating to pulse crop agronomy within industry necessitates targeted investment in capacity building within the advisory sector to build future industry leaders and to provide agronomic support to growers through the multiplier effect. In building this capacity special consideration needs to be given to the present and future demand on existing recognised experts within the pulse industry, specifically key personnel within the research community. In the recent past a lack of industry capacity in knowledge of pulse crop agronomy and pathology resulted in a significant time allocation of key researchers to extension and communication activities, subsequently reducing their ability and focus on core research and development activities. Hence, a key objective of this GRDC investment is to minimise the need for active involvement of staff presently involved in the delivery of the Southern Pulse Agronomy Project DAV00150 and other GRDC projects in order to address major yie