- Location
- NSW, Newstralya
very finicky
being such a short season ( 90 days ) crop, they just dont have the time to recover from any set backs or to grow through problems
they are also susceptible to a number of diseases you cant do much about & of course, there is always insect pressure
you plant a crop of wheat, or barley, or grain sorghum for example, if starting conditions are good & you do everything right, you have a reasonable expectation of what the result might be - not so much with mungs. They werent nicknamed "mongrel beans" for nothing . . .
having said that, they are one of my favourite crops & do have the potential to be very profitable - you just dont want to be betting sheep stations on them
as for yield - remember they are graded quite severely as they are sold straight into human consumption markets & in that regard are closer to fresh vegetables than grain. You can easily lose 10 - 20% or more of your yield in gradings. The other big issue is freight - most of the buyers tend to be located on the Darling Downs in Qld ( at least, most of the ones I know. There were local buyers / graders here, but have since gone broke or closed ), so that is a significant cost. Grading / bagging costs can also be around $100 / t.
However, being a 90 day crop, they dont need a lot of moisture, but their roots only go down about 600mm, so they wont access deeper subsoil moisture
yield wise, i only work on about 1 t / ha, any more is a bonus. 20 - 30 mm of rain at the right time can make all the difference in the world.
Harvesting them can be an issue - even if desicated they can still have a sticky sap, which combined with dust etc can really build up & block elevators etc in your header. You want to be REALLY careful about split beans also, as you will suffer heavily with grading losses.
Like vegetables, mung beans are sold on appearance & visual aspects ( the high value grades for canning or ideally - sprouting ), so any splits or discolouration or insect damage to the seeds is a big no no . . .
i will just add this excerpt from an email from my agro today, which may be of interest. Mungs are a popular crop in southern Qld / Darling Downs & with rain there, will put pressure on seed supplies. If you are interested, you need to secure your seed as quickly as you can
Mungbean
The intention is to double crop all the wheat country (380ha)with mung bean. Subject to availability Opal is a new
variety with a claimed 28% advantage over Jade and has Halo blight resistance but susceptible still to tan spot. I
would aim for about 30-35 plants / m under better moisture conditions eg semi irrigation etc. 40-45/m have given
higher yields.
Definitely consider a VAM product plus double inoculation on the seed. Need to discuss this further.Also zinc will
need to be considered. As discussed narrow rows give better yields if targeting above 1.5mt/ha however single skip
on 13” rows is unlikely to affect yields below 1.5mt/ha.I would still leave the plant population at 30-35plants/m2.On
the basis of say 15,000seeds /kg you would need to plant about 26 kg/ha ( allowing 90% germ,10% establishment
loss) hence approx 9.880 mt seed. Need to confirm seed size. Probably doubt if could get all Opal so make up
balance with Jade.I think I might have the seed issue sorted. Will advise further the seed situation.
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