Postdoctoral researcher at CSIRO with a GRDC ECR Fellowship. Trying to do agronomy like a physiologist and physiology like an agronomist.
Adelaide, South Australia
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New (open-access) paper! I tried to figure out how to talk about pod-set in faba bean properly.
Key takeaway: Interactions between pods are agronomically irrelevant except after stress that kills flowers/pods. Focus on crop growth from flowering!
doi.org/10.1093/jxb/eraf176
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One for the trial perfectionists! Precision planting without a small-plot precision seeder 🤤
Phillip Porter at Livyn Seeds can (very affordably) place your seeds in dissolvable tape at the desired spacing.
livynseed.com.au/
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We love the jacarandas in Adelaide. I love the opportunity to show how nearly all flowering plants overproduce and cull flowers, not just faba bean 😉🤓
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A (1/2): If faba bean was a pavlova, then new varieties are cut into bigger slices (bigger seeds, if you ignore the broadbeans), stand up better (lodging resistance) and don't go mouldy (disease resistance). That's a better pavlova! And it was improved on a limited budget! 1/2
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If you're a researcher who may not care about fabas all that much, you might be interested in Fig 7, where we make some comparisons to other crops.
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If you're an Australian agronomist/grower, you might be particularly interested to see the yield results from 77 Australian experiments in Fig 5. Note the bigger penalties of going below 20pl/m2 AND the large site-to-site variability. There's just a lot of ExM for this M.
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505 pods from 4 plants sown at ~2plm2 is 125 pods per plant ~250pods per m2. Not bad.
15 pods per plant at 25plm2 is 375 pods per m2.
Yield comes from a paddock not a plant.
My main reason for posting is that the person who wrote this protocol (me) is awful and I don't like them
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Final visit before trial harvest near Kapunda SA on a heavier black soil. No rain since early August and a hot September, but doing okay on stored moisture
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Necking scored after some strong wind at Kapunda in 1.2m thirsty faba beans. Broadbeans (aquadulce, right) worse than normal fabas (Samara, left). This trial has all Aussie cultivars so we can measure progress for this trait @SC_Catt @JasonBrand
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Back in Adelaide after a great time at the ILS4 Conference. Presented a visual physiological theory of grain yield and ate habas con jamon (fabas with ham)!
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Some 4 node plants were de-topped to 2 nodes
Intact plants are taller/bigger 2 weeks later (arrows)
But de-topped plants are slightly ahead on branching
Who will win?
Taking my pathological trial perfectionism to the next level with hand sown, precision planted miniplots: compare by hand vs cone seeder. Going to induce early branching with detopping to see how plants contribute to crop yield - ie are fabas nice neighbours or sibling rivals?
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In seasons like this one...
Canola: worry now, probably smile later 🤑
Beans: smile now, probably worry later 🤦♂️
Let's try change that.
(But whatever happens this year, give beans some credit for next year's crop okay?!)
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Taking my pathological trial perfectionism to the next level with hand sown, precision planted miniplots: compare by hand vs cone seeder. Going to induce early branching with detopping to see how plants contribute to crop yield - ie are fabas nice neighbours or sibling rivals?
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Great fun looking at Australian wheat cultivars from 1880s to Sceptre with @UniofAdelaide undergrads today! When they say old cultivars were tall they mean TALL!
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3) there's no lack of summer legume options in the north! Mungbeans soybeans peanuts, they're even trying pigeonpea!
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Back from APC23! Some learnings:
1) scientists have a sense of humour. You can make silly sound effects in your talk and get a laugh. Phew 😅
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Harvested 2022 experiments and now looking at the mountain of samples I'm thinking about all the counting to be done...who wrote this protocol?! Oh wait, that was me 🙋🏽♂️😅☀️🌙🫘🫘🫘
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Now that it has *finally stopped raining the faba bean historic collection has *finally lost turgor and is getting serious about reaching maturity. Big differences in lodging resistance and in yield too I reckon! @Crop_Physiology @SC_Catt @JasonBrand
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My Lebanese neighbour made a great faba bean & rice dish! I reckon I'll have it for lunch in the field tomorrow for the full paddock to plate experience
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Who needs drugs when you can fit 184 curves with a click of the button in R?
Then again, I have been staring and cursing at a computer for about a week now...
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This week we de-topped faba plants in various treatments to look at how apical dominance and neighbours affect canopy structure and yield. 🤞🤞 for a shorter plant with equal yield
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I didnt choose the phenotyping life, the phenotyping life chose me.
Getting ready to roadtest image-based ascochyta assessment in faba bean to see if theres any value for @Sara_N_Blake @SC_Catt
@GRDCSouth
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We sprayed spores on 2 weeks ago, and Ascochyta is just starting to appear on the oldest southern varieties Fiord and Icarus, and on northern region varieties (where they dont have the disease), but not the newer southern lines. 1/2
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Its been great to visit Kedar, northern region faba breeder at Narrabri! We are quantifying genetic gains from 40 years of breeding. As they've been selecting for yield let's see what other traits have come along for the ride! Also running near Adelaide with @SC_Catt
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Getting excited for fieldwork! In 22&23 I'm running genetic gains field trials with nearly every Australian faba bean cultivar, working with N and S breeding programs. And complemented by a pot trial measuring the gains in ascochyta resistance thanks to help from @Sara_N_Blake!
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The relatively small-seeded Fiord, where it all began for Australian faba bean breeding in 1980
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Does anyone out there have 4000+ Barkool seeds they want to donate to a keen bean PhD student?
Let's be honest, this is a bit of a long shot - if youre still growing Barkool you're probably not on Twitter. Go ahead and ask the parents and grandies haha.
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Started the next chapter today, a PhD at @UniAdelSciences! Big thanks to @GRDCSouth , it wouldn’t have been possible for me and my family without the scholarship!
It’s on crop ecophysiology (how crops grow in changing conditions), and I’m sticking with what I know -faba beans 🥳
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Here’s my evidence
With 20pl/m2, the varieties with less biomass did better (blue)
But reducing plant number (orange line), while reducing biomass, had the opposite effect on yield
In other words, plants contribute more than biomass, they also contribute to potential seeds
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Harvesting barley today at Inverleigh.
Approx 9t/ha yields yesterday, members stay tuned for Express Results
Fun-sized agriculture is fun
@SouthernFS
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Vite Vite to be harvested soon.
Aquadulce shows necking as conditions have dried, all sowing dates. It has a big fat stem compared to fabas
Long spring allowed a couple late pods to squeeze in on some plots
Across all trts yields might range 1.5-7t
@SouthernFS @JasonBrand
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Some spring sown pulses at Vite Vite. Fabas flowered and podding, chickpeas flowering. Interesting height differences in fabas, all pods 12”+. Captain stands out in chickpeas but I might be biased since it did so well last year at Inverleigh @SouthernFS @JasonBrand @ChickpeaAus
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Plots sown May 21 in foreground, others sown April 16 in background showing difference in maturity. Late sown beans look nice now with a soft finish but fall short on yield potential.
Plenty of late-sown beans still about the place which is fine, but we can only expect so much
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At Vite Vite, Aquadulce broad bean has more seeds/pod but fewer pods/plant than standard faba cultivars (e.g. Samira). @SouthernFS @JasonBrand
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Edge effect data is in!
We compared 6 plants from the center of the plot to 6 plants from both long edges
Edges had 2% fewer pods to 7% more pods than centers, but no sig. dif. between treatments for this range. That is, edge effects are 0.5 or 2%
P-values for 1-way ANOVA
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From 2020 data it’s about 100pods/m2 to every 1t/ha grain
Assuming the relationship holds, we would predict yields of Amberley sown April 16
at 7pl/m2 405pods/m2 4t/ha
at 21pl/m2 676pods/m2 6.5-7t/ha
But fungicide requirements for high biomass affect the “optimum” significantly
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I was suprised to see this:
Earlier sowing increased lodging (no suprise)
When plant numbers got large enough the lodging score went down (huh!)
That point, and the size of the change, differed between sowing dates
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How’s that for seed size? Amberley left, Nasma right, sown end of April. It seems once Nasma gets a certain number of seeds it just stops & the long cool spring has sent resources to seed size. Amberley is more typical, adding nodes and pods.
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It feels nice having collected biomass. Then you have pod counts to do after a soft spring 🙈🙉🙊 @SouthernFS @JasonBrand @GRDCSouth
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Trials? Machinery? BREAK STATIONS?!
AgriFocus has it all, see you tomorrow.
(Some last minute cancellations means you can still register!)
@SouthernFS
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After a surprise 60mm I’m almost a little concerned for the spring chickpeas (fabas should be right)! If they have a place our sowing dates will have to minimise late waterlogging risk. Sowing Oct/Nov works in Hamilton, I was a bit surprised to see this at Vite Vite! Sown Sep 2
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Looks like we got lucky weather-wise for AgriFocus, this Wednesday at Inverleigh!
Rego's essential, see link below.
Key notes are @agronomeiste on cereal phenology and Cam Nicholson on an updated lime response calculator.
Lots of other great presos too!
@SouthernFS
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