News section

home  |  news  |  solutions  |  forum  |  careers  |  calendar  |  yellow pages  |  advertise  |  contacts

 

Back to basics - key to field peas
South Perth, Western Australia
May 12, 2006

Department of Agriculture and Food, Western Australia development officer Ian Pritchard says growing field peas is like any other crop, if you get the basics right at sowing the crop generally looks after itself. 

But he cautions new growers that if they get the basics wrong at sowing they can play catch-up for weed control and disease management for the remainder of the season.

With this in mind, field peas should be sown to ensure a final seeding depth of 5cm,” Mr Pritchard said

Shallow sowing results in poor crop growth and herbicide damage from pre-emergent herbicides. This leads to increased blackspot disease which further inhibits crop growth.”

Mr Pritchard said crop losses as high as 30-50 per cent could also result when field peas were sown with knife points and press wheels, and then sprayed with either Diuron or metribuzin onto the furrows and ridges. 

He said post sowing pre-emergent herbicides onto a level seedbed was recommended.  Leveling the seed-bed before spraying also helped for harvest.

“Field peas must also be planted in their sowing window not just when the machinery is passing the paddock,” he said.

“Field peas are generally sown at the end of the sowing program.  This achieves two vital functions - disease management and weed control.  Sowing windows will be provided in the following weeks on the Department’s web site www.agric.wa.gov.au

As a general rule, sowing field peas at the end of the sowing program allows the control of at least one or two weed germinations prior to sowing and a germination at sowing or soon after using soil applied herbicides at sowing.  Any weeds early in the crop’s life can be controlled with a post-emergent herbicide. 

“Sowing field peas early allows too many weeds to escape the weed control options through staggered germinations leading to reduced yields and increased weed seed banks.”

Mr Pritchard said as a final rule, field pea seed needed to be inoculated effectively.  Failing to inoculate or killing the inoculum would not only significantly reduce the yield of the field pea crop but also potential wheat yields for the following years.

News release

Other news from this source

15,767

Back to main news page

The news release or news item on this page is copyright © 2006 by the organization where it originated.
The content of the SeedQuest website is copyright © 1992-2006 by SeedQuest - All rights reserved
Fair Use Notice